The Problem With Public Lands Grazing

A partial litany of the environmental costs of livestock production would include its position as the greatest source of non-point pollution in the West. Cattle are also the major source for riparian habitat degradation, the home for more than 70-80% of the West's wildlife. Photo of Blue Creek on public Bureau of Land Management lands in Owyhee County, Idaho courtesy of Western Watersheds Project.

By George Wuerthner

John Muir called them "hooved locust." Former Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas characterized ranchers and the effect of their cows on western lands as "vandalism." Bernard Devoto concluded that the livestock industry did more damage to the West than any other. Ed Abbey wrote that cattle ranching on public lands is the most sacred forms of public welfare in the United States.

I agree with all of the above. No human activity has done more to degrade and damage the West, and perhaps even the world, than livestock production. And no single individual decision could have a greater benefit for the Earth, not to mention human health, than to eat less beef.

The cost of producing livestock, particularly in the arid West, go well beyond the mere excessive cropping of plants we call overgrazing. It includes everything necessary to successfully produce a cow or sheep. And the mitigation of even a fraction of these costs would make any beef, particularly public lands beef, prohibitively expensive.

A partial litany of the environmental costs of livestock production would include its position as the greatest source of non-point pollution in the West. It is also, when the crop production and irrigation required to fed cows are included, the greatest cause of species endangerment in the West. It is one of the leading causes of weed dispersal and exotic plant invasion. By reducing fine fuels across the West, livestock production has disrupted natural fire cycles. Livestock transmission of disease to wildlife has contributed to the demise of many native bighorn sheep herds across the West and is the original source of brucellosis found in bison being shot as they leave Yellowstone National Park to appease livestock interests.

There ain't no free lunch. Every pound of grass going into a cow or domestic sheep is that much less available to support native species from elk to grasshoppers. This in turn has a ripple effect since fewer elk or grasshoppers means less food for predators whether we are talking about wolves or trout. At least on public lands, forage should be going to support native species, not privately owned domestic animals.

Because western aridity reduces productivity, most western livestock operations rely upon irrigated hay and other forage to supplement native forage. Thus another cost of western livestock production is the dewatering of rivers and the fragmentation of aquatic ecosystems by dams for irrigation. Even in crowded California with its huge urban population, it is agriculture, and in particular, irrigated crops grown for livestock feed that is the largest consumer of scarce western water.

Cattle are also the major source for riparian habitat degradation, the home for more than 70-80% of the West's wildlife.

One of the least appreciated impacts of livestock production is the link between farming and livestock. The majority of the nation's farmland doesn't go to grow food for direct human consumption; rather it is devoted to growing crops fed to domestic animals. Livestock production requires the domestication of an estimated 65% of the U.S. land area. The costs in terms of things wild and free are enormous from the extirpation of wolves across the West to the damming and taming of our wild rivers to create irrigation water storage facilities.

Every burger costs more than the meat in it. It costs us wolves, bison, butterflies, sage grouse, trout, riparian habitat, free flowing rivers, and clean water. It is a cost that I refuse to pay any longer.

George Wuerthner is an ecologist and author of 24 books on environmental and conservation subjects.

One Solution: Federal Grazing Permit Buyouts

By Andy Kerr and Mark Salvo

Grazing by domestic livestock - mostly beef cattle - has done more damage to North America than the bulldozer and chainsaw combined.

Not only have livestock degraded the landscape longer than developers, miners and loggers, they also have grazed nearly everywhere. Yet, the conservation movement has paid scant attention to this issue even on federal public lands, where livestock mow through 257,000,000 acres every year.

A huge body of scientific literature documents how livestock threaten sensitive species, trample vegetation, steal forage from native wildlife, accelerate soil erosion, spread noxious weeds, alter natural fire regimes and reduce water quantity and quality.

Livestock grazing is a factor in the decline of 22 percent of all species (33 percent of plant species) listed on the threatened and endangered species list. In comparison, species affected by mining and logging are 12 and 11 percent, respectively.

Livestock grazing has damaged 80 percent of all streams and riparian ecosystems in the arid West. Although riparian zones represent less than 1 percent of the surface area of federally owned western lands, they are critically important to more than 75 percent of terrestrial species in southeastern Oregon and southeastern Wyoming, and 80 percent of wildlife in Arizona and New Mexico.

Nearly all surface waters in the West are fouled with livestock waste that produces harmful, water-borne bacteria and protozoa.

Historically, conservationists working on public lands grazing issues have focused on increasing the federal grazing fee and/or advocating improved grazing practices. Neither strategy has - or will - result in the conservation and restoration of grazed western landscapes.

Locally, special protection of federal lands and litigation under the Endangered Species Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act have removed some livestock from limited areas.

Conservation organizations well-known for their litigation (Center for Biological Diversity, Committee for Idaho's High Desert, Forest Guardians, Oregon Natural Desert Association and Western Watersheds Project), now propose, through the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign, federal legislation to buy out federal grazing permits to end grazing on associated allotments.

The NPLGC is lobbying Congress to compensate all federal grazing permittees who voluntarily relinquish their permits to the federal government at a rate of $175 per animal unit month, or AUM. In contrast, the average market value of a federal AUM in the West is $75.

NPLGC member groups propose this "price point" to convert and compensate as many federal permittees as possible while providing enormous savings to taxpayers.

Federal grazing costs taxpayers at least $500 million annually, or $26.64 for each of the 18,768,177 AUMs provided. While federal permittees pay only $1.43 per AUM - a house cat costs more to feed - the average fees on western state and private lands are $12.30 and $11.10 per AUM, respectively. Even worse for the taxpayer, most of the $1.43 per AUM isn't deposited into the general treasury but rather diverted to further subsidize livestock grazing.

The total present value of the federal grazing program - that is, the cost of the future obligation to taxpayers - is between $501 (Office of Management and Budget 5.3 percent nominal interest rate) and $830 (3.2 percent real interest rate) per AUM. Thus, the buyout is a great way for taxpayers to relieve themselves of the ongoing financial obligation of the federal grazing program. It's also a generous deal for federal lands permittees.

In the big picture, if every federal AUM were bought for $175, the cost to taxpayers would be $3.3 billion while the net savings would be $5.5 billion (5.3 percent interest) to $11 billion (3.2 percent interest). The benefit/cost ratio is 2.7 to 4.3 dollars of benefit for every dollar expended.

Courts have ruled that public lands grazing is a privilege, not a right. Federal agencies can reduce or revoke grazing permits without compensating permittees. The NPLGC's proposed legislation would not only reaffirm this management prerogative but also acknowledge ranchers' financial interests in grazing permits for the purpose of buying them out.

Permit buyouts are ecologically desirable, economically rational, fiscally prudent, socially compassionate and politically pragmatic. They're good for the environment, good for public lands grazing permittees and good for taxpayers.

Andy Kerr is director of the National Public Lands Campaign. Mark Salvo is grasslands and deserts advocate for American Lands Alliance. Documentation for all facts cited in this opinion (except for the cost of cat food) can be found at www.publiclandsranching.org.