STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We're now going to take a closer look at the Bundy's father, Cliven Bundy, a figure who looms over this occupation.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
The older Bundy made news two years ago confronting authorities over his use of public land in Nevada. Here is NPR's Kirk Siegler.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Ever since federal agents stood down to Cliven Bundy almost two years ago, a vast and sensitive piece of federal public land in southern Nevada adjacent to the Grand Canyon has gone unmanaged and unpatrolled.
JAINA MOAN: We just passed the Bundy Ranch.
SIEGLER: Jaina Moan of the group Friends of Gold Butte, as this area is called, steers her Jeep up a bone-jarring, rutted-out, four-wheel-drive road. I'm with Moan and William Anderson, a former chairman of the local Moapa Band of Paiutes, who consider this desert sacred. Gold Butte is full of ancient artifacts, campsites and tons of petroglyphs.
DEVON ANDERSON: I mean, we're nomadic tribes. And the trek we would be would be through this area.
SIEGLER: Now, we're here on our own. We're not with the government and don't have a marked vehicle. If we did, it could get dicey. The last time there was any known federal presence here was last summer when scientists contracted out by the federal Bureau of Land Management were trying to gather field research.
MOAN: Unfortunately, that also was canceled after shots were fired at one of the contract crews.
SIEGLER: Gold Butte is basically lawless. Trash is dumped here and there. Some of the BLM's designated route markers are torn down. Illegal off-road tracks from ATVs lead into the desert. Some pioneer gravesites were even dug up and their bones scattered everywhere. If no one's patrolling it, who's going to deter the vandals?
(SOUNDBITE OF COW MOOING)
SIEGLER: Before long, we're stopping to let a small herd of mangy looking cows cross the road in front of us.
MOAN: There's only one rancher that has cows out here.
SIEGLER: Cliven Bundy.
ANDERSON: They're out here just roaming the area. And they are stepping on areas that are culturally sensitive to our people.
SIEGLER: Like desert grasses and plants that native people have gathered and used for generations. Court orders have banned grazing out here. But when the BLM arrived to round up Bundy's cows in April of 2014, they were met by armed self-styled militia who would mobilize from around the country on Bundy's behalf. The Nevada state director of the BLM, John Ruhs, says there are still imminent threats and intimidation tactics toward his employees around Gold Butte.
JOHN RUHS: When it comes to having employees on the ground doing things like monitoring or restoration work, it's just not getting done because of the safety concerns that we have for our employees.
SIEGLER: And elsewhere in the state where the BLM is still doing fieldwork? They're ordered to go in teams, never alone. It's a sad climate, Ruhs says. The BLM's mission is to manage public lands for all sorts of uses for everyone, not just cattle ranchers.
RUHS: You know, we don't do anything on our own as personal individuals. We do things that are mandated from Congress, and we follow the laws that are given to us, and we try to enforce them appropriately.
SIEGLER: Ruhs declined to discuss the government's case against Cliven Bundy, neither with the Department of Justice. Now, Nevada has a long and troubled history with these sorts of domestic insurgencies. In the 1990s, bombs were placed on U.S. Forest Service property and the BLM's state headquarters in Reno. As for Bundy, land managers in the late-1990s also planned to round up some of his cows that crossed into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Alan O'Neill was superintendent there at the time.
ALAN O'NEILL: And we're all set to go, and at the last minute, the U.S. Attorney's office told us to back off. And they were concerned of course with, they didn't want another Waco, and they wanted time to perhaps pursue this through the courts.
SIEGLER: Cliven Bundy and his supporters have told me in interviews that their fight is about a lot more than cows. It's been hard times economically in rural Nevada. And Bundy is one of the last ranchers in this corner of the state. Many were forced out or bought out over the years as Las Vegas expanded and federal environmental laws got tougher. Still, this take-back-the-land movement being pushed today is infuriating to people like William Anderson of the Moapa Band of Paiutes.
ANDERSON: Well to me, all I can say is, if they want to say that then, well, they can get in line. We're saying the same thing about our people, too.
SIEGLER: Back in Gold Butte, we're walking down a steep gravel slope to take a look at some petroglyphs hidden away in narrow red rock slot canyons. We discover one of these ancient carvings with two bullet holes pocked through it.
ANDERSON: It's really hard to, you know, to even believe that somebody would come in and try to go ahead and destroy it or remove it. It's something that's been here forever.
SIEGLER: Anderson says Gold Butte should be protected forever and managed by the tribes. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Las Vegas.