Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, recently visited the University of Montana, bringing with him an environmental message that, though late to his political game, bears repeating. Speaking at the university's 26th annual Public Land Law Conference,

Babbitt said the country's grazing, mining and land-use policies are anathema to the 21st century. Preservation, he said, should be the priority in the management of public lands and the wildlife that inhabit them.

Laws designed in the 1800s to promote settlement in the West are unacceptable, Babbitt said. And the damage done by those policies must stop.

Here are a few excerpts of his speech:

"I am now convinced that livestock do not belong in arid deserts. . . . I am here to say the presumption that grazing is the dominant use of our public lands is the artifact of a distant past and must be replaced."

"The Forest Service was set up on the model that the forests were meant to be cut. The Forest Service came up with a concept called 'multiple use' to justify the logging of any landscape. . . . 'Be our guest. Take an acre. A homestead. Bring in the loggers. Graze your sheep. Maybe the miners can work around the trees.' Don't you see the problem? The land has limits. We have to set priorities."

"Where does the public interest lie? I say it lies in the beauty of these grand landscapes and in the ecological and biological diversity of the land."

"You had automatic entitlement to the mineral deposits you found. In the 21st century, though, shouldn't there be some limits? Isn't there a higher value on the land itself?"

"National forests are not about multiple use. They are about the dominant public use. The community has the first priority for wilderness, for water, for the integrity of these beautiful forests. If we could protect the remaining old-growth forests, it would be a start toward protecting the integrity of creation."