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WILDERNESS CHAMPIONSRedefining the Radical Environmentalist
"I was a systems analyst, you see, at Honeywell, and my daughter Bettie got after me that I was being too sedentary." Bobbie Holaday got moving by joining Honeywell's hiking club, which took her on both group and solo trips with her dogs into some of Arizona's most remote and captivating lands, including the Grand Canyon and Rainbow Ridge. In 1980 at the age of 57, she joined the Sierra Club and began leading hikes for Grand Canyon chapter members. By simply diversifying her workweek with jaunts in the outdoors, Bobbie gradually transformed herself into one of the most dedicated and energetic wilderness advocates in the Southwest. Bobbie became interested in the Arizona Wilderness Coalition's Adopt-a-Wilderness program that encouraged volunteers to adopt a U.S. Forest Service wilderness study area, compile inventories, and collect data about the natural resources in each area. Because she loved to spend time in the wilderness to begin with, it was natural for her to know the value of wild places.
She adopted the Hellsgate area, sight unseen, and began her quest to prove the area's wilderness values to the Forest Service, who claimed it wasn't "unique." Bobbie soon found that the rocky gorges worn by the Tonto and Haigler Creeks were fascinating and provided a remote sense of solitude combined with rugged challenges that were found few other places in Arizona. When she began attending agency meetings to develop a wilderness proposal in the RARE II process, Bobbie says there was always lots of controversy. Undaunted, Bobbie put together a slide show of Hellsgate's beauty and convinced the Forest Service that Hellsgate was indeed remarkable and should be designated as wilderness. "At one point, I remember SRP [Salt River Project] was considering putting a dam in Hellsgate," Bobbie recalls, "but thank goodness they discovered that the bulk of the rock was porous and not good for dam construction!" But an even more formidable foe for Bobbie in protecting Hellsgate as a wilderness area was the longstanding ranching community, whose most stalwart citizens had been running cattle in its canyons and meadows for more than 100 years. "A letter from Senator [Barry] Goldwater told me that if I wanted Hellsgate in the wilderness bill, I'd have to resolve the concerns of the ranchers," says Holaday. So Holaday met with the Secretary of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association and arranged to spend a weekend with the Cline family, who ran the largest ranch in the area. "The secretary didn't mention she was the Cline's daughter!" Holaday laughs. "I knew from letters I had seen that they had written to Goldwater and alerted him about the 'radical environmentalist' that wanted to have their allotment's public land designated as wilderness, so I figured they already thought me a freak with an extremist view. But I was determined to show them why this land needed to be protected," Holaday recalls. She and friend Tom Wright rode horseback with the Clines--Raymond, Pat, and daughter Jerry--all over their allotment, where they pointed out stock tanks that needed to be maintained with mechanized tools and equipment. Access to the tanks would have to be preserved for the Clines to continue ranching successfully.
"Lord, I was sore after all that riding!" says Holaday, "But I think I showed them that my argument for wilderness held merit and I was willing to compromise to make it happen." Pat Cline remembers Bobbie fondly: "She's got more grit, that Bobbie Holaday, than anyone I know--to come here with knees quaking--it takes some nerve." "We loaded them onto horses down there at the winter camp and I said to her, I said 'Bobbie, do you know the name of this bush? Do you know this flower? This rock formation? This wash?' and she said no, and I said 'Well Bobbie, that's the point. If you don't know the first thing about this land, then you better find out,' and you know, by God, Bobbie went to find out."
Bobbie took Pat's advice and signed up for some range management classes at ASU so that she could negotiate these issues more successfully with the ranching community. She gained a more realistic perspective on range plants, soil erosion, and overgrazing, researched the area's landforms and history, and became familiar with Hellsgate's topography. Armed with greater understanding of rangelands, she was able to render intelligent decisions when the Forest Service invited her to sit on the interdisciplinary teams as a Sierra Club representative with agency staff and ranchers while crafting Allotment Management Plans for various forest permits. Ranchers soon began to appreciate her knowledge and open mind on such matters as herd rotation, once-a-year calving, and non-lethal predator control. "That Bobbie's got more compassion than most people. She showed great intelligence and great sense about how to go about getting her wilderness," says Pat Cline. "She's just a gem." The Clines realized that wilderness would protect their property from the vandals that would regularly drive their trucks in to camp at the Clines' old Rock House-a historic structure that had stood on the property for years-leaving trash and toilet paper behind. Bobbie got out her maps and began compromising.
"When you want something and you really feel it's right and should happen, compromise may be necessary," Holaday says. "I didn't want to condemn the ranching way of life and they came to value the fact that I just wanted to preserve the land they loved. Today I'm happy that Hellsgate will be there for many, many years." She and the Clines remain close friends. When the Wilderness Act of 1984 became law, Bobbie received a congratulatory letter from Mark Trautwein, legislative aide to then-Congressman Mo Udall. "I'm still thrilled when I read this," she says. .You should know that when we first started thinking about an Arizona RARE II bill several years ago, we never thought we'd be able to include as many areas as we did, especially on the Tonto [National Forest]. The fact that we did, I think, is in large part a credit to people like you who worked so hard and selflessly to make it happen. Of course, Hellsgate is your personal monument. As you must know by now, these achievements never 'just happen'-someone has to make it happen, and in large part, you made the Hellsgate Wilderness Area 'happen'. Bobbie firmly believes that without collaborative effort and compromise with the variety of stakeholders around Hellsgate, the wilderness designation never would have happened. She accomplished much the same result when she later worked to establish the Eagletail Mountains Wilderness Area, which she proudly refers to as the "Crown Jewel of the Desert Wilderness Act of 1990."
"Extreme environmentalists have little credibility with agencies, law makers, or ranchers," she says. "Being 'extreme' is pure-sure. But to accomplish a goal, you have to be willing to give a little. You just can't ride rough-shod over people-they have a history and family legacy on the land. You accomplish more by establishing common ground and then building on that context." Now 80, Bobbie scoffs at those who call her a sell out. "Hell, it's much harder to be in the middle with two sides screaming at you while you're trying to bring them together." Having worked with Bobbie on numerous campaigns with his wife and fellow activist Joni Bosh, Sierra Club Southwest Director Rob Smith says: "Bobbie proves that one person can make a difference. She showed us the power of persistence and getting other people involved as keys to wilderness protection." "Bobbie was tireless in her efforts to bring different perspectives together," says Don Hoffman, Executive Director of the newly revived Arizona Wilderness Coalition, which Holaday helped jumpstart in the 1980s. "I'll never know how she did it, but I found myself reading aloud Leopold's Thinking Like a Mountain to a group of ranchers at the Greenlee County Courthouse. Bobbie's courage is obviously contagious." Bobbie went head-to-head with ranchers again in the late 1980s, when she spearheaded the effort to reintroduce the Mexican gray wolf to its native range in eastern Arizona.  Mexican gray wolf with fluorescent ear tabs. After retiring from her post at Honeywell, Bobbie founded the all-volunteer group Preserve Arizona Wolves (PAWS) in 1988 to support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department efforts to return the Mexican gray wolf to it native habitat and to educate the public about the wolves' role in the ecosystem. In 1995, she was awarded "Environmentalist of the Year" by the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. "Working to get that wilderness was mild compared to what I put myself through for the wolves," Bobbie says wistfully. "The challenges with that campaign very often brought me to tears, but this critter needed a voice, and I was determined to be that voice." One of the highlights of her life, she says, came when she helped former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and other dignitaries carry the first three Mexican wolves to their acclimation pen in January 1998. These were among the 11 wolves released into Arizona's Blue Range in March of that same year. Again, she lauds the practicality and success of working collaboratively with other groups, ranchers, and agencies to avoid the extremist stance that has crippled many environmental efforts over the years. "If we had held out for full protection of the wolf under the Endangered Species Act, they'd never have been reintroduced," she recalls. "If we waited too long, wallowing in purist rhetoric, we wouldn't have had a wolf fit to survive in the wild." But in light of strong opposition of many ranchers to the wolf's return, she also believes that ranchers should realize that it's a privilege to graze cattle on public land, not a right. The majority of Arizona's citizens wanted the wolves to return to the public land in the Blue Range.
Bobbie's home at the base of South Mountain Park in Phoenix is a living shrine to the wolf, and her beloved wolf-dog, Blizzard, greets visitors jovially from her backyard. His snow-white face peers between the greenery of his fenced play yard. "Folks seem to get a kick out of seeing all the wolf stuff I have around the house," Bobbie jokes. "They say 'My God--are you obsessed?' I guess I probably am, but at my ripe old age, if I want to live surrounded by wolf stuff--that's my privilege."  Bobbie takes a walk with Blizzard. When asked what her most valuable piece of advice would be to those who want to continue her legacy: "Focus on the goal you've set before you, whether it be wild lands or wildlife," Holaday says. "There will be times when it seems impossible to convince others of the importance of your goal. But you must persevere--meet your opponents head on and find common ground. Your persistence will pay off and bring surprising rewards you can cherish forever." Early this fall, Bobbie will be signing copies of her book about her battle to win freedom for the Mexican gray wolf: The Return of the Mexican Gray Wolf: Back to the Blue , to be published by the University of Arizona Press. Technical assistance by Bob Ball.
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