Review: Romance Lands and Conservation in the GYE
On a cold night in 1967, two teenagers were attacked and killed by grizzly bears in northern Montana, in separate but simultaneous incidents. Their deaths spurred a conversation across the United States about just how wild our wild spaces should be, and the future of the grizzly bear. In Romance Lands and Conservation in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Montana State University, $20) professor emeritus Jerry Johnson compares the initial decimation and subsequent recovery of the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear with the state of wild lands and the prosperity of rural communities surrounding them. With poignant criticisms of human development and the commodification of our most valuable natural resource, Johnson takes the reader on an intellectual journey through “romance lands”—untouched, undeveloped, and unpolluted natural spaces—and their role in both rural economies and ongoing conservation efforts in the Rocky Mountain West.
