美国国家公共电台 NPR In Rural New Mexico, Ranchers Wage Their Battle Through The Courts

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

All right. So the story of Cliven Bundy and his family has been closely followed by ranchers across the West. Let's remember here Bundy is the rancher who led armed standoffs against government officials. Those officials were trying to stop him from letting his cattle graze on public land. Charges against Bundy were dismissed. But this week, federal prosecutors¹ in Nevada asked a judge to reconsider that decision. Now Bundy, for his part, has been calling on other cattlemen to rebel against the government. But in the remote mountains of southern New Mexico, NPR's Kirk Siegler found frustrated² ranchers who have taken a different course.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE³: At 9,000 feet, the lush forests of the Sacramento Mountains are like this island in the sky, towering over the brutal⁴ White Sands deserts.

GARY STONE: It's rugged⁵ country. It's - a lot of it is not accessible any other way other than horseback.

SIEGLER: Rancher Gary Stone's family homesteaded this open range long before Congress gave control over it to the U.S. Forest Service a century ago to regulate it.

STONE: The cold eats into me quick.

SIEGLER: In a meadow of crusty old snow, Stone walks toward a small stream by the side of a dirt road.

STONE: That water is important. That water is life.

SIEGLER: But there is a fence around the stream to keep the cattle out. The government says this is critical habitat for an endangered mouse. Stone's voice starts to shake a little when he talks about it.

STONE: They want to preserve a jumping mouse, and they want to kill an American culture and heritage.

SIEGLER: In arid⁶ New Mexico, the origin of pretty much any fight over the land is water, or what's left of it. And the story around this fence is messy.

STONE: It did close the cows off of this water, which is a personal property right.

SIEGLER: The ranchers don't own this land that they run their cattle on. It's public, but they do own the rights to the water that runs through it. Now, you can imagine things got tense. Their cows didn't have anything to drink. But what happened next is important.

STONE: This could have been another situation just like in Nevada very, very easily. As a matter of fact, we held people out off of a real standoff.

SIEGLER: Because the local ranchers believed the law was on their side, and in this case, they decided⁷ the best path was the courtroom. Sympathizers of the militia⁸ leader, Cliven Bundy, even offered to come in here with bulldozers and tear these fences down. But they were turned away.

STONE: Because we don't that. We don't want - we don't want to go to guns.

SIEGLER: For now, things are relatively⁹ quiet. Travis Moseley is the supervisor¹⁰ on the Lincoln National Forest.

TRAVIS MOSELEY: We could agree to disagree, but I think we all recognize coming to the table to work things through is still the best way to deal with things.

SIEGLER: About that fence, Moseley says his agency has to manage for all kinds of uses, not just grazing. It's striking, though, how tensions in some corners of the West remain just as high under President Trump¹¹, who's vowed¹² to cut red tape for farmers and ranchers. Some people I met in New Mexico who aren't ranchers told me they felt like public lands have turned into this sort of lightning rod for a lot of the economic anxiety you see in rural areas right now. Travis Moseley, though, downplays most of this. He says the Bundys in Nevada get a lot of media attention, but they're not representative of most ranchers.

MOSELEY: Getting to that point where, you know, there's essentially¹³ a standoff I think is a fairly unique situation and not very - you know, repeated very much at all.

SIEGLER: Armed confrontations¹⁴ are still extremely rare. Across the West, literally¹⁵ only a handful of ranchers are defying federal orders to pay their grazing permit fees. And that's out of about 20,000 who operate on federal land.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: They were locals. I think they were local guys.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Yeah, they were local. I coached one of those - his son in basketball.

SIEGLER: All 74 permit holders¹⁶ on the Lincoln National Forest are in good standing¹⁷, but that's not to say all is just fine here.

SPIKE¹⁸ GOSS: We have never not signed our permit, but we have always signed it under protest, you know, or have for the last 20 years or so.

SIEGLER: Spike Goss and his wife, Kelly, will tell you the very idea of having to get a permit is a loaded topic.

KELLY GOSS: You do own something. You know, we don't own the dirt, but we do own the water rights and the forage¹⁹ rights, and you pay for that.

SIEGLER: Ranchers who use public lands pay modest permit fees, but they've also got tens of thousands of dollars and decades of use tied up in their business on the land.

K. GOSS: You can't just walk away from it. It's our livelihood²⁰, and it's what we want to pass down to our kids.

SIEGLER: The court case over the water - it was the Gosses who first filed it 14 years ago. Then late last year, they learned they had won. The judge ruled the government has to compensate²¹ the family if it's going to take their water. There could be appeals, but the Gosses feels somewhat vindicated²².

K. GOSS: You know, we just aren't going to resort to violence. As important as these issues are and as much as we're going to keep fighting for them, we're going to fight to the courts because it's not worth human life for one thing.

SIEGLER: But before I left, Kelly also told me that what appears to have worked here for now may not work for ranchers everywhere.

K. GOSS: There is a tipping point, so I don't want to judge the Bundys or any of those other situations because, at some point, there is that tipping point where you can only take so much pushback from the federal government.

SIEGLER: And across the West, that tipping point may not be in the same place for everyone. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Cloudcroft, N.M.

1 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

2 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

5 rugged   

adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的

参考例句：

• Football players must be rugged.足球运动员必须健壮。
• The Rocky Mountains have rugged mountains and roads.落基山脉有崇山峻岭和崎岖不平的道路。

6 arid   

adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的

参考例句：

• These trees will shield off arid winds and protect the fields.这些树能挡住旱风,保护农田。
• There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 militia   

n.民兵，民兵组织

参考例句：

• First came the PLA men,then the people's militia.人民解放军走在前面，其次是民兵。
• There's a building guarded by the local militia at the corner of the street.街道拐角处有一幢由当地民兵团守卫的大楼。

9 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

10 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。

11 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

12 vowed   

起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He vowed quite solemnly that he would carry out his promise. 他非常庄严地发誓要实现他的诺言。
• I vowed to do more of the cooking myself. 我发誓自己要多动手做饭。

13 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

14 confrontations   

n.对抗，对抗的事物( confrontation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• At times, this potential has escalated into actual confrontations. 有时，这一矛盾升级为实际的对抗。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
• These confrontations and uncertainties were bing played out for the first time on a global scale. 所有这一切对抗和不稳定，第一次在全球范围内得到充分的表演。 来自辞典例句

15 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

16 holders   

支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物

参考例句：

• Slaves were mercilessly ground down by slave holders. 奴隶受奴隶主的残酷压迫。
• It is recognition of compassion's part that leads the up-holders of capital punishment to accuse the abolitionists of sentimentality in being more sorry for the murderer than for his victim. 正是对怜悯的作用有了认识，才使得死刑的提倡者指控主张废除死刑的人感情用事，同情谋杀犯胜过同情受害者。

17 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

18 spike   

n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效

参考例句：

• The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
• They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。

19 forage   

n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻

参考例句：

• They were forced to forage for clothing and fuel.他们不得不去寻找衣服和燃料。
• Now the nutritive value of the forage is reduced.此时牧草的营养价值也下降了。

20 livelihood   

n.生计，谋生之道

参考例句：

• Appropriate arrangements will be made for their work and livelihood.他们的工作和生活会得到妥善安排。
• My father gained a bare livelihood of family by his own hands.父亲靠自己的双手勉强维持家计。

21 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

22 vindicated   

v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护

参考例句：

• I have every confidence that this decision will be fully vindicated. 我完全相信这一决定的正确性将得到充分证明。
• Subsequent events vindicated the policy. 后来的事实证明那政策是对的。 来自《简明英汉词典》