As he signed an historic wilderness protection bill this week, Barack Obama gave a speech that Dave Willis waited a long time to hear. "Twenty-six years, two months and three weeks," Willis says, "but who's counting?" That's how long he's been part of the zig-zagging struggle over a stretch of mountain range southeast of Ashland. Up until now the marquis moment of this saga was the Clinton Administration's 2000 Proclamation creating the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. But that didn't settle tough questions about how the land would be managed day-to-day and year-to-year.

The wilderness bill signed into law this week settles that for about 24,000 of the 58,837 acres in the monument (and lays the groundwork for protecting more). That portion is now off-limits to what's sometimes called "intensive resource management," which in most of our regional battles has meant logging and road-building. That hasn't been the flashpoint in the monument; while truckloads of big trees have rolled out of the area on Highway 66 over the years, the commodity at the center of things has been grass. The Bureau of Land Management oversees permits that give private ranchers grazing rights over expansive acreage inside and outside the monument, at rates that environmentalists have blasted as virtual giveaways. The policy's official purposes are supporting the cyclically-ailing cattle industry and keeping beef prices down for burger and steak lovers. The collective foot- and waste-print of these subsidized cows on this rich ecological landscape has kept Willis and some others fighting for protection all these years.

If you've kept track of this story you've read interviews with some of the affected ranchers, including a couple whose families have held the leases for generations. The deal-maker hasn't been a sudden collective change of heart about the relative importance of cattle-grazing and wilderness protection. These ranchers are receiving sizable payments to give up their leases, with a requirement that the money come from conservation groups and their supporters rather than tax dollars. Well, not that sizable, say some ranchers; it's not enough money to go out and buy grazing rights on private land and stay in the cattle business, but with the writing bright on the wall, they've decided to settle and get on with a different way of life.

Hearing that sets off a slow boil for some of those who've worked to get cows off of this and other wilderness-grade government lands, and who think leaseholders have long made a killing off a public resource. Willis, who's worked steadily on legislation that makes these buy-outs possible, knows that. "I hear the question 'How come we're now rewarding these commercial livestock interests instead of making them pay restitution for the damage their cattle have done to the land?'" he says, "and I get it. What I say in response is that we're trying to protect these lands the best we can, and nobody has figured out another way to do it. This seems to work."

To people who are especially annoyed by the requirement that grazing buyouts come from private conservation dollars that could otherwise fund other green projects, Willis says "We either pay a lot now or a little forever in lawsuits and organizing and begging Congress to do things neither party ever seems willing to do. We'd get the cows off one year and they'd be right back the next, and it'd never end."

It's not ending yet for Willis, who wants to see the rest of the monument and some of the surrounding Oregon and California acreage more securely protected. He tries to offload to others most of the credit for the progress so far, but those who've watched over the years aren't buying. None of this would have happened, they'll tell you, without this one man's relentless devotion to this patch of earth. Did he ever come close to quitting? Only at a couple of moments in buy-out negotiations, he said, when it seemed nobody would end up satisfied.

He didn't quit. Twenty-six years, two months, and three weeks, when so many who claim to care deeply about the land can't be bothered to send a second letter or make a follow-up phone call to Washington or Salem. What kept him going? The imprint of hiking and riding his horses for years through old-growth forests, alongside mountain streams and across wildflower meadows, and sharing the landscape with others. When the going got tough, "I didn't focus on abstract wilderness. I have very specific places I think about, the places I've been, and what happens to them after I'm gone."

Dave Willis isn't big on serving up advice to others. Considering his results, that's too bad.

Jeff Golden is the author of "Forest Blood," "As If We Were Grownups" and the recently released novel "Unafraid," with excerpts available at www.unafraidthebook.com.