He says, “We are seeing older plants on Sand Mountain, but no younger plants. So there is no regeneration of the Kearney buckwheat.” He says that the plant needs to be protected, and the BLM needs to manage its recovery through restoration planting. The Sand Mountain Blue needs the Kearney buckwheat to survive.

I tell Dean about the claim that Jon Crowley Jr. and the off-roaders are making. That there is no evidence of any decline whatsoever, that there is no conclusive study and no conclusive research.

Dean says that the BLM research is ongoing, and that some groups tend to take their research and use it as if it were a complete study.

The map I am seeing is an important component of the BLM’s research.

“We've mapped the Kearney buckwheat, so we can say we are confident we have the correct data on that part of the equation. But we don't have absolute proof of what percentage the Kearney buckwheat habitat has declined.”

Dean pulls off his gloves and switches off the motor. He says, “But based on its incredibly small area in the first place, it’s better to be conservative, to anticipate the possible outcome and try to avoid getting yourself into a situation that would require enormous amounts of money to try to preserve. If we just keep shrinking the habitat by each percentage amount in order to establish that indeed there is an effect and the butterfly is getting endangered, what would be the point when you’re down to five-percent of the original habitat.”

Looking at this sand, seeing the action around us, you have to think it’s very unlikely that the devastation of the local plants around the sand dune are created by something else other than off-roading. Common sense says that the burden of proof lies with the off-roaders.

Dean doesn’t allow me to photograph his map. It denotes a new set of proposed boundary lines for off-roaders and is therefore a quite contentious piece of evidence in the mounting conflict between off-roaders and environmentalists.

Next

1234567891011121314151617181920