This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
As one who has guided many folks, both Americans and visitors, on public lands in the Four Corners, I have heard from most of them that they treasure the freedom to roam found there. The sad, quixotic unfolding of the Malheur "occupation" is a reminder to all that our magnificent public lands heritage and the people who dedicate their lives to their management and protection are under siege, and have been for a long time.
One need only look at the topics listed for discussion at Rep. Chris Stewart's "listening session" in St. George on Jan. 22 to see the hostile mindset of many who profit from these lands and the elected officials who bend over backwards to make sure they get their way, be they public lands grazing permittees, miners, loggers or petroleum developers.
Session topics included "Federal Agency Actions Against Ranchers" and "Potential Collusion Between Agencies and Environmental Groups." This is hardly language that invites fair, open dialogue, especially when the invited speakers included only anti-federal county commissioners and ranchers.
The "Actions Against Ranchers" and "Potential Collusion" are, for the most part, management activities and public processes that protect the public's resources and interests, including clean and abundant water, species biodiversity, restoration of degraded landscapes and recreation values, all of which meet the agencies' multiple use mandate.
Far too often, land managers are bullied into making management decisions first to meet the demands of extractive users whose values are often based solely on private economic gain without regard for and often at the expense of healthy landscapes.
A case in point is the Tushar Collaboration initiated in 2007. In response to a legal challenge, this process involved several grazing permittees on two allotments in the Tushar Mountains, seven conservation organizations, the U.S. Forest Service and more.
After two years of meetings and field trips to discuss and evaluate existing and desired future land conditions, consensus was reached for management changes to begin the process of restoring severely overgrazed "pastures." The consensus process places ranchers on equal footing with everyone else, and all signed off on, among other things, a 47-acre exclosure (fenced area to determine plant growth in the absence of livestock grazing.)
In 2015, one deep-pocketed permittee decided he didn't like the exclosure agreed to by his deceased father and threatened to sue the Forest Service. Motivated by fear of litigation, the Forest Service response was to ignore the consensual agreement and to permit grazing in this ungrazed reference area, which had been recovering for six years. This threw all the other collaborators "under the bus," including agency staff who'd worked so hard on this process.
There was great hope that this collaboration would be a model for improved grazing management and relations between agencies, ranchers and NGOs, but this was a real setback. In Utah some of our elected officials seem determined to undermine agency decisions that are based on science, conservation and multiple use principles.
Recently the BLM has undertaken "rapid eco-regional assessments" which identify global warming, wildfire, invasive species and development as impacts but, astonishingly, exclude livestock grazing as a change agent even though grazing is the most ubiquitous use of BLM lands.
This hardly equates to "government overreach" and in fact looks a lot like livestock enablement. It's little wonder that agency staff, tasked with using best management practices, is demoralized. They aren't paid enough to face violent retaliation if they dare to enact management decisions that may irritate entitled ranchers, who then run complaining to their county, state and congressional officials for even minor changes to the status quo.
As pressure mounts on public lands from global warming, mining and recreation, grazing is one of the few elements that can be directly managed to minimize negative impacts on the land. If nothing else, we should strive for reform from a fiscal standpoint; grazing subsidies account for an annual net loss to the taxpayers of at least $123 million and more than $500 million including indirect costs, all for less than 3 percent of the U.S. beef supply.
While there may still be a place for limited, carefully managed public lands livestock grazing, the time for doing it "the way our grandfathers did" is over. It's time to give our embattled public lands managers support to manage our precious resources for the benefit of all Americans, now and in the future.
Veronica Egan has been a guide, outfitter and outdoor educator and is recently retired executive director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness. She lives in Teasdale.