Human tragedy often drives public policy, as we see from this story and New Orleans after Katrina, and that in itself is a tragic commentary on public leadership struggling to make sense of what they see, what they are being told, and what options appear.
An excerpt.
Tragedy looms over wildland debate
Amid the grasslands of the Carrizo Plain, a suicide heightens the drama of a battle over cattle grazing in a national monument
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau Published 12:01 am PDT Wednesday, August 2, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 15 months after the manager of the Carrizo Plain National Monument killed herself after months of frustration on the job, the federal Bureau of Land Management is reviving the process of creating a management plan for the 250,000-acre grasslands preserve that will be forever associated with Marlene Braun's tragic death.
Braun committed suicide on May 2, 2005, capping a months-long dispute with her BLM bosses over how the preserve should be managed, and in the process earning reprimands and suspensions for what her superiors concluded were intemperate acts of insubordination.
The backdrop for the battles was more political than personal. Created by presidential proclamation just hours before President Clinton left office in 2001, the Carrizo Plain had become a battleground over cattle grazing on public lands -- an issue on which the BLM typically found itself siding with cattlemen.
It just so happened that these public lands, on the border between Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, are the last big patch of wild grasslands left in California and the home of the largest concentration of endangered species in the state. Some, like the giant kangaroo rat, are in direct competition with cattle.
Braun had openly complained that she felt efforts to curtail grazing were being resisted at higher pay grades in the agency, and that she was suffering the fallout.
