Owyhee Initiative still alive

You wouldn't have known from Owyhee County rancher Dennis Stanford's presentation Wednesday about reseeding after a range fire that he is facing orders to remove up to half his cattle from public land. Stanford is one of the ranchers the Bureau of Land Management told in January to reduce their seasonal grazing to meet rangeland health standards. He also is one of the key proponents of the Owyhee Initiative, formed by Owyhee County more than a decade ago to bring ranchers together with groups such as the Idaho Conservation League and the Nature Conservancy to protect wilderness and ranching. The grazing cuts came as a result of an order by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, who ruled in a lawsuit by Western Watersheds Project, an environmental group that opposes grazing. Winmill ordered the BLM to update the grazing permits to show the agency was meeting its standards for rangeland health, guidelines to ensure that the desert ecosystem is functioning. The standards help agency scientists determine that native grasses and shrubs are healthy, streamside areas and watersheds are thriving, and habitat for sage grouse and other endangered species is protected. Many observers predicted the BLM's grazing orders would break up the collaboration, which helped Republican Sen. Mike Crapo get a bill passed by Congress in 2009 to protect 517,000 acres of wilderness and provide help to ranchers and other groups. "There is a lot of tension," said Brenda Richards, Owyhee County treasurer and a rancher who still serves as chairman of the Owyhee Initiative. "If you had your job and your children's education at stake, think about how you would feel." But the Initiative Board and its conservation members signed a letter to the BLM, expressing concerns over its decisions to limit grazing to comply with Winmill's order. "They stepped up," said Richards, who kicked off a series of presentations on desert restoration Wednesday at the American Legion Hall...more