Most of this article by Scott Streater for E&E is about the impact on oil & gas leasing, but here is an excerpt on livestock grazing:
One of the most complicated and nuanced sections of the federal grouse plans deals with cattle grazing.
Ranchers are critical to saving the sage grouse. The Agriculture
Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service reported earlier
this year that since 2010, it has spent $296 million on programs
partnering with ranchers and other private landowners that have resulted
in restoring 4.4 million acres of sage grouse habitat.
Yet the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the Public Lands
Council, a national association representing Western state cattle and
sheep affiliates, has called on the Interior Department to withdraw the
grouse plans, claiming the Obama administration "is systematically
wiping out multiple-use and ranching through regulatory overreach."
The U.S. Cattlemen's Association has taken a softer stance. Danni Beer, the association's president, wrote this week in The Hill
that the group is pleased that Interior and NRCS "are actively working
with cattlemen across the West" to prevent the need for an ESA listing.
"This is common-sense wildlife management and land management," Beer
wrote.
The plans clearly state that existing federal grazing allotments on
BLM and Forest Service lands will be honored. What's more, "no lands are
going to be placed off-limits to grazing," Robert Bonnie, the
Agriculture Department's undersecretary for natural resources and the
environment, said during the grouse plan rollout in Wyoming last month.
There could be changes, however, in how federal grazing allotments
that overlap grouse habitat are managed as a result of the new grouse
plans.
In Colorado, the Dakotas and most of the states covered by the
plans, federal grazing allotments would need to be managed to achieve
certain habitat conditions benefitting the grouse and its sagebrush
habitat.
In Utah, there are limitations on surface disturbance during
specific seasons that "could impact the time during which range
improvements, such as stock ponds to improve livestock distribution,
could be constructed, with some potential impacts on management time and
cost for permittees," according to the plan.
And in Wyoming, livestock grazing on the 170 grazing allotments
administered by the Forest Service in the Bridger-Teton and Medicine Bow
national forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland would be managed
to "maintain residual herbaceous grass height for overhead and lateral
concealment" of grouse during "nesting and early brood rearing life
stages." Forest Service land-use plans elsewhere could also be amended
to include grazing use guidelines that "could include modification of
grazing strategies or rotation schedules, changes to the season of use,
changes to kind and class of livestock, closure of a portion of an
allotment, or reduction of livestock numbers."
But the biggest changes could come when ranchers apply to renew
their grazing allotments, particularly if they overlap grouse habitat.
For example, the federal plan in Colorado calls on the Forest
Service to consider "closure of grazing allotments, pastures, or
portions of pastures, or managing the allotment as a forage reserve as
opportunities arise under applicable regulations, where removal of
livestock grazing would enhance the ability to achieve desired habitat
conditions."
BLM's review of grazing permit and lease renewals and modifications
mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act would require the
agency to evaluate whether they meet specific sage grouse habitat
objectives under the plan.
At the very least, ranchers grazing livestock in primary grouse
habitat are going to see a lot more of BLM. The plans call for the
agency to "prioritize field checks" in priority grouse habitat "to
ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of grazing permits."
Streater doesn't seem to understand the difference on how ranchers are treated by the NRCS and how they are treated by the FS and BLM.
No comments:
Post a Comment