Must read article from today's
New York Times.
In one of the most important archeological discoveries in North America of recent decades, a rancher who kept kept secret an enormous collection of early cliff-dwelling sites in Southern Utah since the 1950s has arranged for the land to be transferred to the government to be protected and studied by experts.
The cliff dwellings are from the Frémont culture, a people who lived in the desert areas of the American Southwest around ten centuries ago. The sites were almost completely unknown to experts. Most have never been touched or seen by modern Americans.
Unspoiled places like these all over the West are under direct threat by the policies of the Bush administration, both on the basis of increased natural resources exploitation and weakened pollution control for heavy industry.
In my mind, sites like these are an incredibly valuable part of our national legacy, much in the same way that the Buddha statues of Bamiyan were a part of Afghanistan's. This great article in the New York Times reminded me how important wilderness preservation really is.
At times, I have found myself a proponent of Alaskan oil drilling or nuclear power production. I do think that there is room for more/better natural resources exploitation and/or innovative power solutions like nuclear production. But not if the cost means losing our sacred places. We've got to be sure that we're protecting sites like this one in Utah's Book Cliffs region.
We're lucky that we have a candidate like John Kerry who is so strong on environmental issues. This is something that we can all get behind.