The Public Lands Council held its annual meeting last week in a virtual setting, which isn’t as much fun. They had a serious meeting and I learned a lot about the agencies they need to work with and the various conservation partners they work with. It was good to hear from many agency people and they say they want to hear from you.
From what I can see, one of the goals for this meeting was to develop policy to support grazing as a major tool in combating climate change, controlling wildfire with fuel reductions, sequestering carbon through grazing, and upcycling forage into beef protein.
It appears that many of the land and wildlife agencies agree that grazing is a vital tool in the battle against significant climate change. Agriculture is starting to get a lot of credit for sequestering carbon. The problem is how to monetize these ecosystem management endeavors.
One item that seemed clear is that agency folks appear to be blindsided with the new administration since everything former President Donald Trump did is under regulatory review, and they are in a holding pattern on many issues. There appears to be a lot of confusion in Washington, D.C., which I can certainly understand.
Everyone was talking about collaboration, transparency and sustainability, which have many definitions. This is where the discussion should start, by defining these terms and others to ensure that everyone speaks from the same script. Various interpretations cause various outcomes.
Outcome-based and targeted grazing were a main topic of discussion. The BLM created a landscape or outcome-based grazing program with 11 ranches about two years ago; only five have management plans. They talked a lot about the cheatgrass issue and there were two grazing plans approved; one in Oregon during dormant season and another in Idaho in the early spring.
Looking forward, I think it’s important that every rancher knows the grazing on public land story. The Biden administration is all-in on climate change remedies and grazing is one of those remedies. This isn’t just for public land ranchers because all of you are part of the grazing ecological process on both private and public lands. Now we need to learn how to measure carbon sequestration in native grasses.
Terry Padilla, regional rangeland director for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), made it clear about the benefits of grazing livestock. “Proper public land grazing is the most significant, cost-effective vegetation management tool that we have in the Forest Service,” he said. “Our public land grazing program touches more NFS [National Forest System] acres and affects more working landscapes than any other management tool that we deploy…We should be enhancing public land grazing applications and opportunities in our public land agencies—not decreasing them. …Where not done properly all this goes in reverse, but these situations are the rare exceptions with our working rancher and stakeholder partnerships… Likewise, stakeholders such as National Wildlife and Ducks Unlimited are important partners toward helping our agency get our grazing management plans right for the applications we use them. Thanks for the forum, PLC!” The BLM and USFS get it, as well.
One thing that bothered me with the agencies is that they are trying to do the right thing, but the layers of bureaucratic decision making is overwhelming; 10 groups might be required to contribute to a management decision. It takes forever to get anything done.
These agencies and stakeholders would be better served if all decisions were made at the local level BLM and USFS offices. There are way too many people in the process to allow any flexibility in management decisions. Everyone says they want local decision making and flexibility, but the system won’t allow it…unless Congress gets involved to write new grazing legislation. How would that be? The Freedom to Manage Allotments Act, (FMAA) kind of has a nice ring to it.
It must be frustrating to all parties engaged in public land management, and I have to hand it to the PLC. They are constantly pushing uphill on grazing regulation, which is really giving you the freedom to operate. Pare these decision makers down to three or four decisions. And give these public land ranchers credit for being good stewards of the range.
Then there is the legal side of the equation with the enviro-litigators and the environmental groups that don’t like one blade of grass consumed by a cow; it’s crazy. I’m getting older and more cynical. But, pray for spring rain, it’s worked so far. — PETE CROW
