國家地理:牧野分歧(4)

Gerrity estimates the total cost to buy 500,000 acres of private land and endow it forever will be upwards of $500 million -- half the price of a professional football stadium, which has a rough shelf life of 20 to 30 years. From 2009 to 2017 alone, more than a million acres of native prairie were converted to cropland in the seven counties surrounding APR.

格里蒂估計，要購買并永久占有50萬英畝的私人領(lǐng)地，總共要花費5億美金--一座專業(yè)足球場價格的一半，而且足球場的使用年限大約是20到30年。僅在2009年到2017年間，美國草原保護區(qū)周圍7個縣超過一百萬英畝的草場就變成了耕地。

"Species are blinking out," he says. "Habitat is going away. There's a really short period, maybe 20 to 30 years, to do some really big stuff, and then the opportunity is going to be gone. We're swinging for the fences here."

他說：“物種正在消失。棲息地也正在消失?？梢宰鲆恍┐笫碌臅r間很短，可能只有二十到三十年，然后機會就消失了。我們正在因為這些柵欄付出代價?！?/p>

It's an audacious vision. It is also a very contentious one.

這是一個大膽的預(yù)測。它也同樣充滿爭議。

When it rains in central Montana, the dirt roads turn into what the locals call "gumbo," a slick clay-mud that often is impassable. It is, mercifully, drying out as Leah LaTray steers her pickup down a track snaked with deep ruts, clods of mud winging out from the wheels. LaTray's great-grandfather, Mose LaTreille, was a cowboy of French and Native American heritage who came with the cattle to northern Montana in the 1870s. LaTray, 47, wears a long black braid over her shoulder, silver hoop earrings, vest and kerchief, and square-toed cowboy boots. Her parents lost their ranch when she was a girl; she left Montana in the 1990s to study microbiology in Seattle and then to train horses in Texas. "It took me 20 years to come back," she says, "but I did," buying 250 acres that remained in her family's hands. LaTray makes her living running cattle on her partner's property now. "If you sell your land, you sell your future," she says.

蒙大拿州中部下雨的時候，布滿塵土的路面就會變成當?shù)厝丝谥械膅umbo，意思是濕滑的無法通過的路。好在莉亞·拉特雷把皮卡開上布滿車轍的小路時，路面已經(jīng)干了，土塊從輪子里滾出來。拉特里的曾祖父摩西·拉特雷是法國和美國土著的混血，也是一個牛仔。19世紀70年代，他騎著牛來到蒙大拿州的北部。拉特雷現(xiàn)在47歲，肩上垂著一條又黑又長的辮子，戴著銀色的圓圈耳環(huán)，穿著背心，拿著手帕，腳上是方頭牛仔靴。當她還是個小姑娘的時候，她的父母失去了牧場；20世紀90年代，她離開了蒙大拿州，到西雅圖去學習微生物學，然后到了德克薩斯州馴馬。她說：“我花了二十年才回來。但我做到了?！崩乩赘改傅?50英畝的地被人買走，她靠在伙伴的草場上牧牛維生。“如果你賣掉自己的土地，你就賣掉了自己的未來?！彼f。