Western Watersheds Project sued the Arizona Bureau of Land Management today for bringing a long-dead grazing permit back to life and handing it off to a new permittee without any public process. WWP’s press release with a link to the complaint is online here.
After nearly thirty years of no authorized grazing (but plenty of trespass by scofflaw ranchers), huge swaths of the allotment still look like this:
Begging the question that comes to mind about many, many grazing allotments on BLM lands in the West: Why, dear god, WHY?
Because BLM.
See ya in court, Safford Field Office.
Greta Anderson
Greta Anderson is a plant nerd, a desert rat, and a fan of wildness. She is the Deputy Director of Western Watersheds Project and lives on the land of the Tohono O'Odham and Yaqui people in what is now called Arizona. Greta's opinions and world views are not necessarily reflected in the posts of other authors on this blog.
BLM has a total disregard for ethical behavior and sad to see how they are jeopardizing our environment when they are suppose to be earths’ protector.
Very sad indeed. What’s wrong with these people? Why are they playing God???
This is what happens when particular people think they are personally owed something and that the public should foot the bill to raise the livestock that they make profit on. This is dispicable! This land is for the public and we as the public, should not be footing the expense for ranchers who feel entitled to ownership of public lands. Shame on all of them!
Ranchers have elevated themselves to the same (but undeserved) level of police, military, school teachers, etc. And they’ve been moderately successful. Yes, shame on them, but shame on us, too, for being asleep.
What’s wrong with the BLM?
It is a bureaucratic , hierarchical organization with a leadership that believes itself omnipotent and outside the law. The problem has been getting worse since the Reagan/Watt administration but the folks I knew that were outside the government had no comprehension of how bad conditions got in the BLM or other agencies for that matter and most congress people did not care either.
For example, biologists were encouraged to do thorough work relating to endangered species management during the Jimmy Carter administration but during the Reagan administration the USDI heads created all sorts of creative obstacles to prevent biologists from doing what they were supposed to do. For example, they forced field employees to stay in the office and read inter agency mail/reports. They withdrew funds to keep biologists out of the field and went so far as to attempt to force biologists to sign false reports for the purposes of expediting oil and gas leases, wells etc.. The BLM upper management and middle management became corrupt because the top leaders were also corrupt. Any lower employee that wanted to keep his or her job either complied or got punished and removed.
As we have seen more recently just because there are laws regarding what the BLM is supposed to be doing does not mean that the agency will follow them because the employees that make up these cauldrons of hypocrisy have to comply with the wishes of upper management if they wish to stay employed. I’d guess one would say it is a form of extortion but unfortunately it works only too well.
The goal, especially for the republicans has been to drain public lands of resources then sell them off. We are lucky to have a few groups left like WWP to try to correct theses agencies bad behavior.
Lastly if you have not read “This Land” by Christopher Ketchum, I would suggest that you all do so.