Rooted in the soil: How understanding the perspectives of landowners can enhance the management of environmental disputes

This essay uses mythic criticism to examine missed opportunities for identifying with landowners in ways that would enhance the constructive management of environmental disputes. It focuses on the communicative implications of a policy for managing endangered species that fails to consider existing cultural practices, then offers an alternative mythic understanding of the American (U.S.) West that is drawn from the discourse of its central characters. After reviewing the historical context leading to a conflict over the golden‐cheeked warbler habitat, we explore the meaning system discovered in landowners’ discourse. Interviews conducted with ranchers who have been required to sell or limit their land‐management options to make room for a wildlife refuge display the problematic relationship between public discourse and public policy. Finally, we argue that by encouraging the inclusion of communities that have been directly influenced, yet not consulted when environmental policy is formulated, decision‐makers can reinvent a meaningful space for public discourse and avoid relying on the cult of expertise when deciding how best to manage commonly held resources.