Illustrated Daily; 5100; Soil Conservation

People who know their history very well will realize that the soil conservation service was brought about from the effects of the dust bowls in 1930s. And I don't think anybody wants to relive that. All right, if somebody isn't continually telling the public that we need to take care of these resources, we soon will be wasting them. And then we might be in a situation like you find in Ethiopia today. The Illustrated Daily, Managing Editor Howe Roads. Good evening. This is National Wildlife Week, and although one might expect organizations like the National Wildlife Federation to use the occasion to focus upon the plight of endangered species

in the like, this year the theme is soil. We can't live without it, and for good reason. Roughly 40% of America's nearly 500 million acres of productive agricultural land alone is losing its soil as a consequence of erosion. This faster than the forces of nature can replace it. It is all a part of something called desertification, the making of a desert. And it may in the long run, pale to insignificance, American farmers much publicized current debt problem. Indeed, even the most conservative of environmentalist openly worry that problems most of us consider to be the sole province of places like Ethiopia may be our own as well in the not-too-distant future. Momentarily we will be talking about this not-so-quiet crisis with Ray Margo of the United States' soil conservation service, Irv Khrysher, Regional Director of the National Wildlife

Federation, and Alan Savry, Executive Director of the Center for Holistic Resource Management. First, however, Carl Kernberger has this background report. At that time, the situation was very bleak. Erosion was on the rampage, fields were blowing away in the Midwest, say nothing of them, many, many people that were out of work at that time. And I, to this day, can remember, as a youth in the Midwest, seeing these dark clouds roll in over our farm. I remember the chickens in our barnyard going to roost at one o'clock in the afternoon, because it got so dark when these dark dust clouds would roll in. Dust would be settling all over our house, our equipment, everything was covered with

a big dust layer. And in all the time, all the while, these dust storms were originating as a drought of the thirties. And in 1935, the second big dust storm came across Washington. Now this might be hard to believe, but actually these clouds formed from dust or soil being eroded by wind in the Midwest and blew clean across to come over to the east coast in Washington DC. And these dark clouds rolled into the chambers of Congress. They were, at that time, considering the establishment of a soil conservation service. The soil conservation service was established that it was in April 27, 1935, as a result of the public law 46 that was passed by Congress. The way it seems like society functions, at least in America, is that something has to reach a crisis proportion before we start to react.

The process of desertification, basically just a process of becoming a drier, more harsh environment. New Mexico is very susceptible to the desertification process. We live in a very fragile environment or ecosystem, and that whereas areas in the more humid areas of the United States rainfall or precipitation covers up a lot of man's mistakes. But in New Mexico and most of the southwest, we don't have that luxury. The desertification process that most people are interested in currently is the process of man making the environment a more harsh or drier place to live. The blend itself, the soil resource, is protected by plants. And that if we remove those plants, then we expose the soil surface to the ravages of rain and water, wind, things like this.

So, and the erosion process then is underway. Then we, plants can be removed in several different ways. One is just simply the physical act of removing the plant by digging it up or blading it off. The other way is through misuse of the plant, and that primarily we're looking here at grazing animals, whether they be wildlife or domestic livestock, and that through repeated defolations of the plant, the plant is continually drawing upon its carbohydrate reserves in the root system. If we do not allow that plant an opportunity to replenish those carbohydrates reserves through photosynthesis, the plant in effect stars itself to death. Today especially here in New Mexico, we have the land use change coming about. We have a lot of subdivisions being put out on the land. People are moving out in the country, and ironically as soon as people seem to get one to five

acres of land out in the country, especially here in our semi desert areas that are being subdivided, they have to have a cow or sheep or especially a horse on there to denude this area again, and thereby exposing the soil again to the elements, either the wind or the water. You have to take them to consideration first that our resources in New Mexico are very fragile. Our soils are very fragile. In fact, right here in Albuquerque, if you'll just go west out to Rio Puerco, you can put in your just a look at them, and those soils will start creeping down the hill. The basic thing though is that once the plant is removed, the soil is exposed to raindrop impact, raindrops splatter, the soil leaves the site, and once we do that, it takes so long time before we can ever expect to get that site back to its potential because soil

takes in a tremendous amount of time to develop. I admire President Reagan and the fight that he has to properly administer government. I'm sure he has a reason with all the advisors, and it's just me out here, way out here in New Mexico on the land, I don't know what the reason is for the defense program, and I'm sure we need this to keep this country free. But also know that we have to put our priorities in the right place, and one of the high priorities in my estimation is to have our resources protected and available for the use of future generations. As far as eliminating soil conservation service, I just like to wish the agency good luck in their budget battle, but I don't feel like that is the wise thing to do. Sure, there's room for improvement in any agency, but I would hate to see an agency such

as this, go down the tubes, because they have been very instrumental in putting a lot of on-the-ground conservation practices in effect on American farms and ranches. And we need the resources here to feed our nation. What feeds our nation, basically, it is soil and water. That's what produces our crops. People who know their history very well will realize that the soil conservation service was brought about from the effects of the dust bowls in 1930s. And I don't think anybody wants to relive that. I, as H.C. as a possibility, I hope that we've learned a lot since the SCS was formed, but I don't think it's any excuse to simply do away with the agency because we don't have a dust bowl anymore. And so a very disturbing situation. And of Christchurch of the National Wildlife Federation, your organization has so many pressing preoccupations today, everything, from endangered species to, frankly, you name it.

How is it that on the occasion of National Wildlife Week, your organization should choose to focus upon the plight of our soil? Well, I think the reasons are too full, Hal. Since 1938, the latter part of the dust bowl, the National Wildlife Federation has been holding National Wildlife Week, which is a national celebration, calling attention to something in the natural resource order, which needs attention, needs special attention. You might recall two or three years ago, we focused special attention on here on public lands. It was a big, well, nearly a holocaust against keeping our lands public. The next year, we focused on the year of the eagle, which was the 200th anniversary of making that great bird our national emblem. And last year, we focused on clean water.

This year, soils came about for a couple of reasons. The federation in itself is dedicated to the wise use and management of our natural resources and to the natural environment required by all life on Earth. So soils certainly stay in high in that order space, surely. And the second thing is, the birth of the Wildlife Federation was very similar to the birth of the soil conservation service. Back in the dust bowl, we also had our beginning in 1936 in the middle of those dust storms that you just saw narrated on the cut for the TV program. This year, I personally see the soil conservation service fighting for its life because of budgetary cuts. And of course, we want to help bring that to the forefront to see and to show people how necessary it really is and how concerned about it we are.

Well, of course, overwhelming, I want to talk about the conservation service in a moment. But about the soil itself, the overwhelming majority of the American people, for the most part, at least psychologically, are today so far removed from the soil that its problems remain in their minds, have become in their mind rather exotic, esoteric concerns. How does one go about giving a true measure of understanding to the great bulk of the population of this not-so-quiet crisis we have on our hands? We had the director of the soil conservation service. One of our featured speakers at the National Convention would certainly give them some notoriety and some ability to get their message out. By featuring it at our National Convention, it certainly showed a lot of people. Now, we are a rather large conservation group.

In fact, the largest one in the world. We brag about some 4.5 million members, some nearly 10,000 here in New Mexico. So by calling attention to what we have done, also with this program, this is our packet for the year, which we distribute to better than 1.5 million elementary schools. We want to call this not only to the attention of the politicians, but also to children and show them through the soils what the life chain is like and what it supports. All right. Mr. Margo, desertification, let's try it this way. According to some experts, more than 35% of the American West is currently in the process of either severe or very severe desertification, adding up to more than 10% of this continent itself. I heard at the beginning of the program talk about the specter of an Ethiopia on our horizon on this continent if we are not careful. Is this just alarmist talk or should we take it seriously?

Well, I believe that we should take it seriously. I would estimate that we have from 5 to 10% of the land area in New Mexico now that is in some early stage of desertification, and I feel that the problem is serious. It has to do with how people manage their land and how we all contribute to maintaining vegetative cover, which is Mother Nature's protection to this land. And if this vegetation, this natural cover is removed or not managed right, it would tend to disappear and the land becomes hard baked and it becomes so hard that it has trouble taking in moisture.

The little precipitation that we get in the West would tend to run off or evaporate, but mostly run off, and it just doesn't utilize the little moisture that we get and if those people that own and manage land do not manage it properly, I feel that this can go in that direction. It's herb crisis a moment ago, mentioned that one of the reasons that the National Wildlife Federation decided they wanted to focus upon the crisis on the land today and the soil today was because of the threatened extinction of the U.S. soil conservation service. Indeed, President Reagan has advocated its abolition within a period of three years. How is that, pardon me, calculated to solve this crisis deal with the problems of our soil and the problem of diversification?

The first place I must make one point clear and that is that I support the President's budget and I support what he's trying to do in terms of balancing the national budget, reducing the national deficit and all of those neat things. If you weren't and if you weren't and his employee as it were, would you? Personally I feel that a cut across the board to all federal funded agencies and programs to all equally take part in a reduction would be my idea of a more equitable way of balancing the budget but I must support his budget. I will say that in New Mexico this two thirds cut or the 67% cut of the budget would bring us down and most of our work is technical assistance.

Most of what we have is people, we render technical assistance in conservation work and we would probably have to reduce from about 232 full-time workforce to about 70 people in New Mexico and we would basically remain a skeleton crew to face down and take care of existing contracts. Alan Savry, the view of this situation from the Center for Holistic Resource Management is a proposed abolition of the United States soil conservation service, something which should worry those who are concerned about an already escalating crisis in the soil. I would think it would be a retrograde step. There are enormous changes needed in what the soil conservation service is doing and extending to people but to do away with the service would I think be a tragedy for the United States. What would be its consequences as you see it?

I mean tragedy in what sense? Is Ethiopia up on us if something like that happens? Ethiopia is upon you whether that happens or not if we don't change our policies but even if we changed our policies and got more sound advice to ranchers and land operators resource managers we would still have a difficult situation because where would they get that advice from? You need a government agency to extend the advice to the bulk of the people on the land because they won't go to other sources to get it. All right, let me ask you this. You got to be real brief. It's got to be in a nutshell. You have a unique vision of what it's going to take to save this continent, perhaps this planet, it has to do with holistic resource management, what is that? Let me try, that is a model that we've developed over about 30 years that we can apply to resource management situations in various modes we can apply this model but rather than try to explain

the model at length which we couldn't do in a short thing of this nature, let me indicate the nature of the problem to some extent. Dr. Chris Allison when he introduced this pointed out that you have to maintain a plant cover on the soil and most people can see that and he mentioned the ways that you can remove this cover physically or by over utilizing it, over grazing it. What he didn't mention is that in a desertifying or brittle environment such as New Mexico, you can remove it by rest. And in the very pictures that you showed in the lead up to this interview, there was evidence of over rest being the major problem and not over grazing and the evidence was actually in those pictures. Now, how does this come about in an environment like this? It is a low rainfall as Ray Margo has just said and incidentally, although I'm disagreeing with the policies that the SCS currently extends, you mustn't take this as a disagreement with Ray Margo here, he has been our strongest supporter in what we've done and so have many other SCS people.

So this is just the technical issues we're talking about. And if you look at an arid environment like this, their rainfall is too low. To maintain solid forests, woodland, therefore it has to have grassland to cover the soil. If you measure the bunch type grassland that we have in arid environments like this, the base of the grass plants never covers more than about 5% of the soil. That means about 95% of the soil surface cover has to come from something else. What can that come from? It can only come from the plant material, from the grass plants that drops to the ground. If you go and look at a rested piece of land, and you can see it all over the West Mesa, just out of Albuquerque here, and look at long-rested pieces of land, the grass plants are dying. And the plants stand in the air and oxidize and just blow away. Which is probably one of the reasons why wildlife federation is interested in it as well, right? They are absolutely correct to worry about the soil. The soil surface and its management holds the ultimate fate of all wildlife as well as

man. All right. I think you proposed holistic resource management, absent something like soil conservation service. How much time do we have on this continent before something like Ethiopia is upon us? And where should those of us basically in an urban environment remove from the soil go to see it creeping upon us? First, how long till you have an Ethiopia here? This is a function of population size. The desertification in New Mexico is already as bad as any country in the world that I've dealt with. And I've dealt with Middle East countries and many in what people have. Would you agree with that? That is as bad here as he's going to find a place? Some of it appears to be real bad, but we have to take into consideration that some of that erosion that we see out there and apparently a desertification is natural geological erosion that will take place regardless of what anybody would do with normally this.

But its basic proposition with whole water. Right. Where do you take us? Well, show us. Where will we find it? Where will you see the desertification process taking place? Right. Go to Alameda Airport. It's been rested since 1948. The grassland is nearly dead. It's just brows and shrubs and bare soil. And as long as you've got bare soil, you will have evaporation from the surface of the low rainfall. You will cover a soil surface as any gardener knows to avoid that evaporation from the surface. And as long as the evaporation from the surface is taking place as an accelerated rate, you will get desertification. So you have the idea. What about the larger continent? What is it? 35% of the west is already in the process of severe desertification. Elsewhere it is on the march. What kind of time does this continent have? Well, that's what I started to explain just now. Your desertification in New Mexico is already worse than any country I've experienced. Right?

Now, why are people not aware of that? You're not aware of it because you've only got a million people in the state and they're all in four cities. And you have one of the wealthiest. The state is a poor state, but by world standards it's a wealthy country. So combine that wealth and that very low population, and we're not collecting for starving people here. If you take my own country of... I'm out of time. I'm out of time, I've been... Christchurch, thank you and your organization for calling this to our attention. You've performed a public service and gentlemen, thank you for coming by this evening to visit with us on this. And we're going to leave it at that because that's it for this week. Next week we return to our normal time slot and we hope you will return with us. Meanwhile public television is currently in the process of an important fundraising effort. These are not easy times for public television, so if you are able, please make a contribution. Help us continue our pursuit of television excellence. Until next week then, thank you for joining us. I'm Hal Rhodes. Thank you.