一大笔钱正用于在大平原上建造一种新型的国家公园

一大笔钱正用于在大平原上建造一种新型的国家公园

A privately funded, nonprofit organization is creating a 3.2 million-acre wildlife sanctuary — American Prairie Reserve — in northeastern Montana, an area long known as cattle country.

一个私人资助的非营利组织正在蒙大拿州东北部建立一个320万英亩的野生动物保护区--美国草原保护区--这个地区长期以来一直被称为畜牧国。

But the reserve is facing fierce opposition from many locals because to build it, the organization is slowly purchasing ranches from willing sellers, phasing out the cows and replacing them with wild bison.

但该保护区面临着许多当地人的强烈反对，因为为了建设它，该组织正在慢慢地从有意愿的卖家手中购买牧场，逐步淘汰奶牛，用野生野牛取而代之。

Those private properties are then stitched together with vast tracts of neighboring public lands to create one giant, rewilded prairie. The organization has purchased close to 30 properties so far, but it needs at least 50 more.

然后，这些私人地产与邻近的大片公共土地连接在一起，形成一个巨大的野生草原。该组织目前已经购买了近30处房产，但至少还需要50处。

"I see them coming in with big money, buying up ranches and walking over the top of the people who are already here," says ranch owner Conni French. "For them to be successful in their goals, we can't be here, and that's not OK with us."

“我看到他们带着大把的钱来，买下牧场，把已经在这里的人踩在脚下，”牧场主人康尼·弗伦奇说。“要让他们成功实现目标，我们就不能在这里，这对我们来说是不好的。”

A new kind of national park

一种新型的国家公园

Sean Gerrity, founder of American Prairie Reserve, is standing on one of the vast ranching properties his organization recently purchased. It looks like a miniature Grand Canyon — a panorama of deep, white canyons cut through by a wide, muddy river.

美国草原保护区的创始人肖恩•盖瑞蒂站在该组织最近收购的一处大型牧场地产上。它看起来就像一个微型的大峡谷——被一条宽阔而泥泞的河流穿过的深深的、白色峡谷的全景。

"What you're seeing here is the incredible beauty of the Missouri River out in front of us," he says. "Those beautiful cliffs and the raking light coming across in the afternoon."

他说:“你在这里看到的是我们面前的密苏里河令人难以置信的美丽。”“那些美丽的悬崖和午后斜射过来的光线。”

The project's goal is to rewild this swath of the Great Plains and return all the animals that lived on this landscape more than a century ago, before white settlers arrived. Wolves, grizzly bears, thousands of genetically pure, wild bison.

该项目的目标是让这片大平原重新变野生化，并让生活在这片土地上的所有动物回归，那是一个多世纪以前，在白人定居者到来之前。狼，灰熊，成千上万的纯种野生野牛。

Gerrity points down to the valley below. "Over here would be some elk," he says. "Over here would be bison. On the riverbanks would be a mama grizzly bear with two or three little cubs walking along the mud there."

盖瑞蒂指向下面的山谷。“这里有一些麋鹿，”他说。“这里是野牛。河岸边会有一只灰熊妈妈，带着两三只小熊在泥地上走。”

These are animals one would see at Yellowstone National Park, but without so many tourists. The reserve is a new kind of national park, one that's free to the public and privately funded through both small donors and some of the wealthiest people in the world.

这些动物可以在黄石国家公园看到，但是没有那么多游客。该保护区是一种新型的国家公园，对公众免费开放，并由小捐助者和一些世界上最富有的人提供私人资金。

American Prairie was founded more than 18 years ago after Gerrity moved back home to Montana from Silicon Valley, where he ran a firm that consulted for companies such as AT&T and Apple. For him, the project promised a different kind of long-term investment.

美国大草原公司成立于18年前，当时盖瑞蒂从硅谷搬回蒙大拿，在那里他经营着一家为美国电话电报公司和苹果公司等公司提供咨询的公司。对他来说，这个项目承诺了一种不同的长期投资。

"To work on something — pour your heart into it — and arrange it like a giant work of art and the public would by and large appreciate and realize it would last far, far beyond my lifetime? That just seemed like a dream come true," Gerrity says.

“去做一件事——全身心地投入进去——把它安排得像一件巨大的艺术品，让公众大体上欣赏和认识到，它会持续很久，远远超过我的有生之年?”这就像美梦成真一样，” 盖瑞蒂说。

The reserve has since garnered multimillion-dollar donations from a German billionaire, heirs to the Mars Candy Co., and a handful of top executives in the finance industry, at least two of whom helped steer big investments in oil, gas and coal. Those industries have exacerbated climate change, leading to increased wildfires, floods and drought in the northern Great Plains.

从那以后，这个保护区已经从一位德国亿万富翁、玛氏糖果公司的继承人、以及金融业的几位高管那里获得了数百万美元的捐款，其中至少有两人帮助引导了对石油、天然气和煤炭的大规模投资。这些行业加剧了气候变化，导致北部大平原的野火、洪水和干旱增加。

Some see hypocrisy in this kind of money, including Rob Reich, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at Stanford University.

一些人看到了这种钱的虚伪，包括斯坦福大学慈善和公民社会中心主任罗伯·赖克。

"The structure of global capitalism, which they had a role upholding, is partly responsible for the degradation of the environment," Reich says.

“他们所支持的全球资本主义结构，是造成环境恶化的部分原因，”赖克说。

But Gerrity says the reserve can't afford to be that picky because almost all of his donors, big and small, are driving the climate crisis.

但是盖瑞蒂说，保护区不能那么挑剔，因为几乎所有的捐助者，无论大小，都在推动着气候危机。

Besides, he argues, this is one of only a few intact grassland ecosystems in the world and he wants to fully restore it before it disappears.

此外，他认为，这是世界上为数不多的完整的草原生态系统之一，他想在它消失之前完全恢复它。