Developing the Grand Canyon and Other Great Natural Areas

I read an article recently about how certain leaders of the Navajo nation want to build a resort and tram down to the canyon’s bottom on the eastern rim. (“Navajo Nation Eyes Grand Canyon for Development,” on Yahoo! News.)  They want to create jobs and revenue for the Navajo people in the area by attracting tourists to the resort, which would require massive infrastructure additions (i.e., paving a road, inserting piping and plumbing, etc.), and would include an RV park, a restaurant on the canyon bottom, and a gondola.

On the one hand, I sympathize entirely with the plight some of these people face.  I can’t imagine what it’s like to live on a reservation, or what it’s like to live in poverty.  These are situations I have never had to face, and while I can understand on an intellectual level, I have never had to actually experience hunger, or poverty, or what it’s like to not have a decent roof over your head, or anything else these people may or may not have faced.  The Navajo, and the native population in general, has been seriously mistreated and ignored over the past 400 years, and this is a situation that will need to be addressed.  I understand that the Navajo need to find a way to bring in revenue and jobs for their people.  I’ve driven through the reservation when I visited the Grand Canyon last year.  I saw, to a small degree, what the Navajo face.

On the other hand, building a resort in that space that would bring in so many more people will destroy what has been protected and revered for thousands of years.  Imagine what a new paved road would do to the landscape.  Imagine what thousands more people coming into a space that has previously only been visited by a handful at a time in comparison would mean to the environment and the ecosystem.

Imagine how that would affect the plant and animal life in the area.  We know that people are slobs.  Most people ignore the orders not to feed the animals, for example.  A lot of people litter, despite the best efforts of the park services to prevent it.  And a gondola bringing people to the canyon bottom with a restaurant placed there as well–while it sounds like a neat idea, it also sounds like a bad one to me.  I can’t see how that would in any way be a benefit for the ecosystem around that area.  I can see how that would actually detract from the environment and how that would ruin the very thing the tourists are there to see.

I agree that something needs to be done to help the Navajo create jobs.  If this is the absolute only way to help them, then OK.  But I think a plan like this should be a last resort because of the inherent damage it will cause to the environment that they’re also trying to protect.  I just can not see how this plan will be beneficial in any way to the environment of the canyon.

Another issue that I find confusing in this matter–and this likely comes from my own misunderstanding of native practices and which areas are considered sacred to which tribe, so bear with me a bit–but to my understanding, the canyon is considered a sacred area to a number of different tribes.  So not only is it protected by the park service, but it’s also a sacred ancient site for Navajo and other tribes.  Shouldn’t that mean that the Navajo should protect the site rather than build on it?  The question arose while I read the article and I couldn’t find an answer while doing some research online on which tribes consider the canyon area sacred/protected ground.  But according to my understanding of native practices, shouldn’t they be protecting the canyon rather than enacting a plan that would detract from it?

My opinion is that the resort should not be built.  I hope the Navajo can find another way to attract jobs and revenue.  While I think this plan would in fact bring them what they’re looking for in the short run, I think in the long run it would backfire. The canyon would begin to lose its natural appeal because of the massive changes to its environment, and the tourists would eventually stop going to a place that has lost its special appeal, the things which make it alive and wonderful and beautiful.

Loss of Trees and a Changed Landscape

As many of you may know, I live in Maryland.  I’ve lived in Maryland my entire life.  I was born here and I’ll most likely die here, if I have my way.  I’ve lived all over Maryland, from the remote areas in the north beyond Hagerstown, all the way down to Charles County and the lower countryside, and everywhere in between.  I’m less familiar with the eastern shore area, but that’s not really the point.

I can remember when much of Montgomery County was not as developed as it currently is.  I remember when there was more farmland–my grandparents were dairy and grain farmers and very big in the business of Montgomery County, and my father works in agriculture.  Maryland is my home, it’s in my blood and my heart.  This land speaks to me like no other ever has.  Although I have lived in Waldorf for only a few short years, I can even remember when that whole area as well was far less developed than it is now.

Now, when I drive up Ridge Road in Germantown or down Route 5 in Waldorf, I see great swaths of trees and forest area cut down for development.  Off Ridge Road, there is an entire new development of townhouses and single-family homes that are so squashed in next to each other I wonder how anyone feel like they can move.  Rows upon rows of houses, expensive houses, so completely unnecessary in the area.  And I can recall when all of that never existed.  When it was forest.  When it was farmland.  When crops would pop up during the summer and I would ride down the road and admire the way the sun would light the trees.

It’s still not finished.  Some development company is expanding on the first townhome division, and another is adding a new development a little further down the road.  It sickens me to drive that way now and see the trees gone, the dirt churned up and rearranged.  It serves as a stark reminder, to me at least, that humans are fundamentally flawed and stupid.

Waldorf, as well, is now facing the same sort of development.  I’m sure many people are happy for it, and praise these new buildings and houses that are “better” and “more economic” as advancements in developing the area.  But all I see are tall, grand trees that have stood for who knows how many years cut down and laying on the churned ground.  All I see is desolation and a waste.  And for what?  A new movie theater?  So Target can move into town?  So we can have yet another grocery store that we don’t need?

How can we possibly say that this is acceptable?  I can, to a certain degree, agree that housing is necessary.  Maybe not multi-million dollar houses that no one can really afford in this economy, but housing, yes.  That’s fine.  But do we really need huge developments of million dollar homes, or yet another shopping center?  We get so focused on making a dollar and on buying things and having things that we ignore the fact that we are destroying the environment around us.  We destroy the ecosystems that have been in place before we arrived.  With the loss of trees and plant life comes the loss of animal life, all of which creates an imbalance and harms us.  We are harming ourselves, in the end, and it can all start with the destruction of trees and the environment.

It is difficult for me to drive past those areas anymore and see how things have changed, see how the land has been changed, and not for the better.  All those houses packed so tightly into one space has created an influx of cars, which means increased pollution in the area, as well as an increase in traffic and trash.  Disgust and absolute shame in my kind overwhelms me when I pass those places.  Yes, shame.  Shame that I am a human and shame that we are so incredibly stupid to think that we can keep destroying the environment and still somehow turn out OK and make a profit.

Everything for a measly dollar, I suppose.