Columnist Susan Snyder: Desert is far from barren

Monday, Jan. 13, 2003 | 8:15 a.m.

In a swath of desert along the Virgin River near Mesquite, a European scientist tapped the sides of a rusty beer can to see what would fall out.

Dead beetles tumbled into his palm.

A few feet away, a handful of scientists from various corners of the globe examined a shriveling cholla cactus. A third group surveyed a dying Joshua tree.

They seemed oblivious to the pastel cliffs stretching in all directions, and Erika VanWie was hopeful. The future of conservation may lie in the care of people who can see past breathtaking landscapes and focus on a handful of dead bugs.

VanWie works for the Nevada Wilderness Project, one of the groups that tried to get 340,000 acres of desert in the Gold Butte area southwest of Mesquite included in the 2002 Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act.

Only 25,000 acres were included. It's imperative, VanWie said, that the desert be seen as more than just another pretty face.

"We need to work on bringing the science into what we do and getting scientists to sign on to what we do," she said.

VanWie and two colleagues spent Wednesday bumping around Gold Butte with 40 scientists from the first gathering of the International Biogeography Society. The group, founded in 2000, links the expertise of specialists in the earth sciences.

The four-day meeting in Mesquite drew about 200 scientists from 15 countries and dozens of disciplines such as paleontology, microbiology, botany and geology. In trading information, they can obtain a more broad view of how nature evolves, adapts and perishes.

Terri Knight, a botanist who works for the U.S. Agriculture Department in Las Vegas, described a fistful of plants she'd collected within 25 paces of the group's vans.

"We're identifying six (new species) a year and have been since the '70s," Knight said. "It's still the frontier in botany in Nevada. We're 10th in the nation in plant and animal species. It is not a dead, empty, heartless land."

Wirt Atmar, an extinction theorist from New Mexico, remarked on the fragility of the desert.

"In New Mexico, where the Butterfield stage route went, you can still see the treads in the desert. That was 120 years ago," Atmar said.

The Butterfield stage ran for only three years.

Damage from wheels -- specifically those rumbling beneath all-terrain vehicles -- is among the things that worry such people as VanWie. While the scientists crawled over Gold Butte's pink granite boulders, Frank Boggs, a Las Vegas mechanic, test-rode an ATV that belonged to a Utah man he'd just met.

"He's thinking of buying one so I let him ride mine," said Robert Stucki, who moved to St. George after he retired from Nevada Power Co.'s Moapa plant.

Stucki was joining some old work buddies for a few days of camping and four-wheeling. He marveled at the number of countries the scientists represented, but he didn't question why they came. The land has much to offer.

"There's beauty in the desert," Stucki said. "It's just different."

Those differences, in the forces that created it, the ones that challenge it and the manner in which people appreciate it, may hold the keys to its protection.