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Editorial Do
No Harm I worked for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for nearly three decades, and did my share of time
in the agency's "biostitute" cribs! Let me assure you that, even if there may be specific isolated cases
in the arid west where some form of managed grazing is as good as, or even better than, no grazing -- the agencies
never have had - do not now have - and never will have the funding and manpower
necessary to ensure that multiple use (other than livestock) or sustained yield (even for livestock) planning objectives
and statutory environmental mandates are being met! These agencies are charged with general health and well-being of our public lands, so they should at least comply with the physician's mandate of "do no harm". They cannot! They are trustees of public resources. Their first obligation as a trustee is accountability for the health and use of those entrusted resources. This, they also cannot do - and frequently do not even give priority to! They have not (and cannot) satisfied these basic mandates under present political priorities and misinterpretations of the law - and anemic fiscal resources (past, present, or future)! This is one of the reasons that I (as a retired agency range conservationist) support the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign's proposal for legislation to establish a VOLUNTARY grazing permit buyout program. If agency budgets cannot be brought up to the level needed to do the job right, then the demand for providing forage from public lands for domestic livestock should be brought down to a level that can be responsibly handled within agency budgets! My personal feeling is that, in the arid west, such an equilibrium point would ultimately be so low that it would no longer be justifiable to maintain a grazing program on any public lands - but that is another story for some date in the future. |
