The Battle for Yellowstone: Morality and the Sacred Roots of Environmental Conflict

Abstract

This creatively conceptualized, deeply researched book reveals much about the nature of Yellowstone National Park (ynp) and a surprising amount about politics, religion, and human nature. What does it mean to be a good person? How do answers to that question flow from how a person interacts with animals, resources, and landscapes? How do different answers lead to seemingly intractable social and political conflicts? Justin Farrell, a sociologist who also holds a divinity degree and works in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, uses ynp and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, an area surrounding the park in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, to explore conflicts over the environment. Farrell covers human relationships to the region over twelve thousand years but focuses on the recent past. The creation of the park set the region apart and imbued it with special meaning that has spawned conflicts for decades. Farrell uses three case studies—managing the Yellowstone bison herd, reintroducing wolves, and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)—to dig deeply into competing visions for the area. Simply put, an “old West” vision based on utilitarian resource extraction competes with a “new West” vision dedicated to enjoying nature. Boiled down to stereotypes, ranchers square off against “cappuccino cowboys” (p. 6). Ranchers and others who work the land see themselves as heirs to the noble moral tradition of the Jeffersonian yeoman and exemplars of the Protestant work ethic. Those who seek enjoyment in nature and the conservation of animals and resources for their inherent value see themselves as defending noble moral values rooted in spirituality and ecology. Each group stands on a different moral high ground, which makes co-existence tense and compromise difficult.