By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

Livestock grazing on lands managed by federal government agencies is a critical component of Nevada agriculture.  Roughly two-thirds of the state’s agricultural revenue comes from livestock and the bulk of those livestock spend significant portions of their time on federally-managed lands.

The lay of the land and the way in which combinations of private/federally-managed lands are incorporated into ranching enterprises – access to use federally-managed lands is the foundation to the economic value of the ranches private lands.  Without the ability to use the tracts of federally-managed lands which are linked through grazing permits to the ranch, the business is probably not sustainable.

Livestock grazing on lands managed by federal government agencies has become an operation controlled by a variety of range science applications.  On-the-ground monitoring and adaptive management have made their way to the fore front of essential practices that are required to maintain on-going grazing.

One of the current largest threats to having the ability to use federally managed lands comes in the form of anti-livestock grazing organizations who have learned to take advantage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to manipulate required decision processes.  In conjunction with an Idaho-based judge, these zealots have turned the un-crossed “t” or the un-dotted “I” into the method for delaying rangeland management from being implemented as well as their own private instant cash machine to recover attorney fees.  Overturned agency decisions, as well as the threat of future second-guesses, have led to agencies more focused on paper-work than rangeland conditions. 

Once, collaboration and building on-the-ground consensus were effective approaches to identifying problems as well as surfacing solutions.  When applied these tools, matched with strong monitoring and aggressive applied management can still accomplish enhanced resource conditions.  Taking this route requires a major commitment on the part of the rancher as well as major commitments from those involved as partners.

Those who prefer to use the court system aren’t interested in making a commitment to improving rangelands.  They also aren’t interested in applying science or responsible management.  Their goal is doing everything possible to remove livestock grazing from public lands.

Confronting this reality can only be accomplished through ranchers stepping up to participate actively in determining resource management objectives and then going forward to achieve these goals through responsible management practices.  In addition, appropriate amounts of documentation should be assembled to indicate the results of what is taking place on the land.

Those directly involved in use of the federally-managed lands are ultimately responsible for protecting their continuing ability to maintain use. 

For those of us who support this responsible use of renewable resources – our efforts need to focus on encouragement and participating in the public decision-making processes, promoting use of science.

It should also be a priority to examine and then promote meaningful improvement in the public policy arena.  Management decisions need to be determined with a far more productive approach than what the current system has devolved into.