Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Friday, December 07, 2012
Grazing study, climate link spark controversy
An Oregon State University College of
Agriculture administrator said a report authored by an OSU College of
Forestry professor that was critical of grazing on public lands does not
necessarily reflect the opinion of the university. Further, John Killefer, head of
the College of Agricultural Sciences Department of Animal Health, said:
“I think that livestock grazing can be an important part of a range
management program.” A report by OSU forestry professor Robert Beschta and
a team of scientists in the online publication Environmental Management
determined grazing on public lands exacerbates the effects of climate
change.In the report, published Nov. 15 in the online
publication Environmental Management, the scientists wrote that
livestock production on public lands “can alter vegetation, soils,
hydrology and wildlife species composition and abundance in ways that
exacerbate the effects of climate change on these resources.” “Removing or reducing livestock across large areas of
public land would alleviate a widely recognized and long-term stressor
and make these lands less susceptible to the effects of climate change,”
they wrote. A USDA rangeland scientist and cattleman rebuked the findings which say it exacerbates the effects of climate change. Tony Svejcar, research leader of the Eastern Oregon
Agricultural Research Service Center in Burns, said the report
highlights isolated examples of poorly managed allotments and fails to
present an accurate picture of the overall effect of grazing on federal
lands...more
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