have sat back and they have largely been silent, and this has worked to 

 the advantage of the advocates of the Sagebrush Rebellion. The academic 

 community has a self-imposed silence, although it has both the data and 

 the historic perspective to look at this movement in a more balanced 

 respect. And I wonder what value academic freedom is without the 

 courage of conviction? 



Well my final point is that westerners do have control. They do have 

 their hand on the destiny of the public lands. And that these lands can 

 be lost, if we look at the record, if westerners do not become involved in 

 the issue. And if that happens, we will have states like IVlontana--which 

 has some of the finest big game hunting--become like the non-public land 

 state of Texas, where the hunting areas are largely privately held. I 

 think we will see a great deal of 'no trespassing' signs sprout up and 

 access denied to our mountains and hunting lands as a result. And I am 

 firmly convinced that small and in this case, selfish groups, will dominate 

 the issue if more people in the West do not become involved in the issue. 

 Well, for over a year I have listened to some rather outrageous statements 

 from the advocates of the public lands and I have listened to the western 

 congresssional delegations insult some of my own former students and 

 graduates, and I think it is time to start shooting back. These people, I 

 am convinced, intend to plunder the remaining public lands. I am 

 convinced that they are relics of the past and that they represent an 

 earlier wasteful and exploitive view, i also know that they have controlled 

 the management of these lands in the past and that they will continue to 

 control their management in the future unless the people in the West stand 

 up to them. 



I think, in summary, the Sagebrush Rebellion is a regional political 

 movement. It is riding on mythology, intent on trampling and slandering 

 public servants under the guise of citizen activism. And under this 

 veneer, the movement has greed disguised as philosophy. It's larceny 

 with the facade of moral righteousness. Thank you. 



jaiA'l 



GENE DECKER : Our next speaker is Huey Johnson, who will be giving us 

 the viewpoint of a state administrator of a natural resource agency. Huey 

 is a graduate of Utah State. His early degree was in biology from Western 

 Michigan and his M.S. was in wildlife biology from Utah State. He has 

 had experience as a corporate manager. He worked in fisheries research 

 for California Fish and Game and for the Alaska Fish and Game 

 Department. He taught school for a while in Idaho and he has worked for 

 the Nature Conservancy. He's on the board of a number of national 

 conservation groups and was active in a group supporting the United 

 Nations' Environmental Program. This is a guy that has quite a track 

 record in the resource management field in the United States. He was 

 appointed secretary of the California Natural Resource Agency in 1977 

 which includes the Wildlife, Parks and Water Development Departments, 

 among others. 



