Education called crucial in protecting environment

Wednesday, July 19, 2000 | 11:38 a.m.

Nevada natural resource planners got a surprise Tuesday night when Las Vegas residents begged for an education plan that will teach children about the environment, especially how fragile the desert really is.

For those attending a workshop to help the state begin to write a plan to protect natural resources, the issues ranged from desert dumping to defacing the ancient rock art of petroglyphs.

But they kept returning to the need for education.

Marge Shane recalled how she raised five children in Las Vegas when Red Rock Canyon and Lake Mead were part of an extended backyard experience. No one paid fees, she said. The family was too poor to pay for their recreation other than to drive out to those special places.

With the population explosion, Shane no longer goes so often to her favorite places. As a substitute teacher she worries about urban children who have never seen the sandstone majesty of Red Rock Canyon or the blue waters of Lake Mead.

"People don't know how to take care of the desert," Shane said. "It pays off to educate children."

To teach off-road drivers how to enjoy the desert without tearing it up and to tread lightly on the fragile network of plants and animals, Don Dayton, a spokesman for off-roaders, suggested teaching people responsible recreation use. Organized groups don't destroy the land, he said, but a few individuals straying into the roadless desert do.

Garbage piled from the fringes of the cities to the foothills also brought groans from all 25 people attending the workshop at the Nevada Division of Wildlife on Vegas Drive.

No wonder the rest of the country wants to dump high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain when construction contractors and residents dump on themselves, Sierra Club spokeswoman Jane Feldman said.

"Desert dumping reflects residents' views of Nevada as a wasteland, so how can we expect other states to respect us?" Feldman asked.

State natural resources planner Ed Skudlarek said no one in the previous eight workshops had mentioned environmental education.

"This was the first time education ever came out during a workshop, and it surprised me," he said.

Education is extremely important to teach children how special their community is, he said.

"They get familiar with their home turf. They learn about their surroundings," Skudlarek said.

That is a major goal of the Outside Las Vegas Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has as one of its major goals children's education, said environmentalist Jeff van Ee.

The state will take three years to build a framework for writing the natural resources plan.

For more information, go to the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources website (www.state.nv.us/cnr).