"The Emery County Public Lands Management Act of 2019 must seem like a miracle to anyone familiar with the bitter and contentious history of public land management in Utah and the West. Traditional adversaries, rural residents, environmentalists, miners, Democrats, and Republicans somehow came together and began talking--and listening--to their traditional adversaries. The result is a new map of Emery County, bringing together a mosaic of wilderness designations, state parks, and lands opened for development to assure a future for rural communities. Steve Strom and Jonathan Bailey's careful telling of this story will surely become the essential guide for spreading this example throughout the West."--Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior and Arizona Governor "This book presents a pictorial and narrative history of the San Rafael Swell that dazzles and makes you believe that great advances in protecting sensitive landscapes are possible if people are willing to work together!"--Henri R. Bisson, former Bureau of Land Management's Deputy Director for Operations and Secretary of the Interior's Senior Advisor for Alaska Affairs "In addition to its stunning illustrations, the book makes an extraordinarily valuable contribution to the literature on the collaborative conservation movement in the West by focusing on successful examples that originated at--and remained focused on--the county level. At a time when our national discourse is tearing us apart, these efforts demonstrate that ranchers and environmentalists, Republicans and Democrats, recreationists and conservationists can find common ground--and save that common ground--if they walk that common ground together and are willing to compromise. And spend years doing so.

Compromise is often considered a dirty word. At a time when we're so busy demonizing one another that we can't get much done, however, these examples prove the old adage that perfection truly is the enemy of the good. As long as environmental politics is viewed as a zero-sum game, nothing tangible will be achieved on the ground."--Thomas E. Sheridan, co-editor of Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History.