Cattle grazing vs. sagebrush species: Conservationists seek monetary compromise

The Oregon Natural Desert Association three-day conference, which concluded over the weekend, was sponsored by several like-minded environmental groups and attended by upward of a hundred scientists, activists and other participants from all around the country. Sage-grouse Management and Conservation was one of six panel discussions on the first day, with speakers from the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and two conservation groups. WildEarth Guardians was represented by Mark Salvo, Director of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign and ecologist David Dobkin, spoke on behalf of the Greater Hart-Sheldon Conservation Fund. Salvo started things off with a lively presentation that condensed the complex subjects of sage-grouse management, cattle grazing impacts on sagebrush habitat, the monolithic part that a highly flammable invasive species is playing in the proliferation of hotter, more intensive and more prevalent wildfires—into a fifteen minute overview. The debate between conservationists, cattle ranchers, land managers and federal agencies has raged on for over a dozen decades. Grazing is seen as the single most damaging factor in the devastation of water resources, natural systems, native plants and sagebrush-dependent species. Additionally, barbed wire, which impales flying sage-grouse and other species, leaving them to die slow, torturous deaths, is a highly undesirable impediment across thousands of remaining fenced acres on public lands. Conservation groups like WildEarth Guardians supports sustainable, land grazing reform and legislation that would allow recovery organizations to buy out grazing permits for a fair price to the rancher. It couldn’t happen soon enough, because full recovery of such delicate habitats could take up to 100 years. In November 2011, Congressman Adam Smith (WA-D) introduced HR 3432; the Rural Economic Vitalization Act (REVA). It would allow third-parties to compensate ranchers, who permanently withdraw their grazing permits...more