Wise-use movement
The Wise-use movement is an antienvironmentalist initiative primarily focused on promoting the economic exploitation of natural resources, particularly in the American West. Emerging in response to environmental policies from the 1960s and 1970s that limited access to federal lands and resources, the movement argues for a balance that prioritizes human values over conservation efforts. Advocates criticize what they perceive as excessive restrictions imposed by environmentalists, often labeling these policies as elitist. The movement gained momentum in the late 1980s and is rooted in historical events like the Sagebrush Rebellion, which represented rural interests contesting federal regulations.
Wise-use activists employ a range of strategies, including lobbying, litigation, and public campaigns, some of which have successfully garnered significant legal and political victories. By the early 1990s, the movement had broadened its appeal beyond traditional concerns, aligning with property rights advocates who argue for compensation under the Fifth Amendment for income losses due to federal regulations. While the movement has made strides, public support for environmental regulations remains significant, complicating its efforts to reshape environmental policy. The diverse composition of the Wise-use movement, with varying priorities among its members, contributes to its persistence in the political landscape, despite challenges in gaining widespread acceptance for its agenda.
Subject Terms
Wise-use movement
IDENTIFICATION: Antienvironmentalist movement that promotes the economic exploitation of natural resources, particularly in the American West
Wise-use advocates, who typically criticize environmental policies as excessive and elitist, have succeeded somewhat in damaging the image of environmentalists and in hampering environmental policy making, but without gaining the support of the American public for their own view of the appropriate balance between human and natural values.
Wise-use activists maintain that true conservationists should seek a reasonable balance between human and natural values and that human values should come first. Some wise-use advocates challenge environmental “extremists” and restrictive resource policies through obstruction, lobbying, advocacy in the media, litigation, and (rarely) violence. Although the wise-use movement began in the American West, where federal lands are extensive, wise-use organizations, and the concepts associated with the movement, have grown to national scope.
Roots of the Movement
The antienvironmentalist movement developed as environmental policies initiated in the 1960s and 1970s threatened historical values and patterns of natural resource development. Until the early 1970s, policies of public land management in the United States promoted local resource development industries, particularly ranching, logging, and mining. Laws such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and various wilderness bills restricted access to federal land resources. Noneconomic and nonlocal values, such as wilderness preservation, advanced at the expense of traditional economic resource use. Environmental policies also affected private lands. Some of these new policies hurt the livelihoods of workers and communities throughout the West, as well as the profits of large and small businesses.
The wise-use movement has strong roots in the Sagebrush Rebellion of the late 1970s, which occurred when western rural interests sought to counter national environmental politics and policies by shifting federal resources to state and local governments. However, Ronald Reagan’s election as president of the United States in 1980 and the proexploitation tilt of appointees such as Secretary of the Interior James Watt undercut pressures for such change. The contemporary wise-use movement emerged in the late 1980s when conservative westerners felt that their rural interests had again been forgotten. The antienvironmental movement started as a creature of trade groups and large economic interests. Groups such as People for the West, for example, existed solely through the support of mining interests. Still, the movement attracted publicity, developed strategies, and cultivated ideological links with conservative think tanks and politicians.
Wise-Use Victories
Environmentalists initially underestimated the strength of the wise-use movement, perhaps because of its bombastic antienvironmentalist rhetoric and weak popular base. In the early 1990s, however, wise-use groups scored significant legal and political victories. Their powerful symbolic actions and organizational abilities attracted more popular support in the West than in other regions of the United States. Broad public campaigns, such as that of the Yellow Ribbon Coalition to promote old-growth logging in the Pacific Northwest, demonstrated the new force and appeal of wise-use activism. Coalition activists attacked preservationist ethics by labeling the conflict as a matter of “people versus owls.” Strong traditional interest groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation came to favor wise-use ideology and strategies. By 2018, several thousand groups were associated with the wise-use label, with some estimates placing the number at one thousand or more. The movement also enhanced its influence in Congress, especially after Republicans took control in 1994. However, continuing public concern over the restrained legislative action on wise-use proposals. Although willing to interfere in the implementation of laws such as the Endangered Species Act, Congress did not overturn any major environmental legislation.
In the early 1990s, wise-use advocates broadened their national appeal by moving beyond public lands and traditional western issues to ally themselves with advocates in the property rights movement. In simple terms, the property rights movement argues that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that the government compensate citizens for any loss of income arising from the federal regulation of property use. Such an interpretation could effectively preclude most significant environmental regulations, since the amount of compensation could be overwhelming. The U.S. Supreme Court has occasionally favored this view, such as in its decision in the case Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), but the Court has not recognized all environmental regulatory costs as “takings” requiring compensation.
Future of the Movement
The wise-use movement appears to be a natural countermobilization against the environmentalist successes of the 1970s. The key question is whether the movement can sustain its momentum. Continued public support for environmental regulations has thus far prevented any significant reform of the Endangered Species Act and keeps the most radical wise-use concepts on the periphery of the debate. The American public, in general, may never accept the wise-use perspective on the appropriate use of natural resources. Furthermore, wise-use proposals appeal primarily to rural interests and extractive industries, while the country continues to urbanize and shift toward a service economy.
On the other hand, the movement has had powerful allies in Congress, such as Congressman Don Young, a Republican from Alaska, and the property rights issue continues to generate significant public sympathy and business interest. The movement may benefit from the Supreme Court’s changing view of property rights and its increased deference to government decisions. The fear of violating property rights may cripple environmental regulators, while groups seeking to stop the sale of federal natural resources may be less welcome in court.
Wise-use advocates have done some damage to the image of environmentalists without successfully selling their own view of the appropriate balance between human and natural values. The movement continues to complicate environmental policymaking without redefining the public purpose. The wide-ranging diversity among wise-use activists ensures the movement’s survival. Even the radical wing of the movement includes people from many different backgrounds and with widely varying priorities. For example, some Nevada wise-use advocates, arguing that the federal government does not have legal jurisdiction over counties, build illegal roads on federal lands. Others in the movement are like Ron Arnold of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, who has stated that the movement intends to “destroy the environmental movement once and for all.” Such extremists draw media attention and public fire. They also clear the way for moderate groups to make seemingly reasonable inroads on environmental regulations. The movement may eventually shed the “wise-use” label if it becomes identified with extreme acts, such as the bombings of US Bureau of Land Management offices in Nevada in the 1990s. Whatever the names and the strategies used, organized and sophisticated to environmentalism has become an important part of the political landscape.
Bibliography
Brick, Philip D., and R. McGreggor Cawley, eds. A Wolf in the Garden: The Land Rights Movement and the New Environmental Debate. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996.
Davis, Charles, ed. Western Public Lands and Environmental Politics. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2001.
Gottlieb, Alan M., ed. The Wise Use Agenda: The Citizen’s Policy Guide to Environmental Resource Issues. Bellevue, Wash.: Free Enterprise Press, 1989.
Helvarg, David. The War Against the Greens: The “Wise-Use” Movement, the New Right, and the Browning of America. Rev. ed. Boulder, Colo.: Johnson Books, 2004.
Jacques, Peter J. Environmental Skepticism: Ecology, Power, and Public Life. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009.
Pendley, William Perry. "RIP Ron Arnold, Founder of the Wise Use Movement." Washington Examiner, 16 Apr. 2022, www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2337415/rip-ron-arnold-founder-of-the-wise-use-movement/. Accessed 24 July 2024.
Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Green Backlash: The History and Politics of Environmental Opposition in the U.S. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1997.