Wildearth Guardians has used satellite images and public land records to show the massive damage grazing of sheep and cattle does to the soil, water, forage, and wildlife of our public lands, including the spread of non-native invasive weeds.
Study: Grazing threatens wildlife habitat in West by Scott Sonner. Associated Press
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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Great work Forest Guardians and Mark Salvo!
WHY in the world would any bank continue to loans to these Welfare Ranchers?
“Some grazing permittees who are low on operating capital
engage in a dubious, though federally sanctioned practice of
collateralizing their grazing permits to finance their public lands
grazing operations. Both the Forest Service20 and BLM facilitate
the use of publicly owned grazing permits and leases as collateral
for private bank loans. The BLM has documented more than $1.1
billion in liens on BLM grazing permits/leases in the eleven
western states; approximately 300 ranch operations have taken
more than $450 million in loans on Forest Service grazing
permits.
In 2000, the State Bank of Southern Utah submitted information
to the Supreme Court confirming that financial institutions hold
an estimated $10 billion in loans and related credit transactions
with the public lands ranching industry, with grazing permits
alone valued at approximately $1 billion.
Economic Contributions
The economic contribution of public lands grazing … is miniscule”.
I think I’ll be including this in comments on grazing allotments.
So, where is the great “Mr Audacious Hope” that you all voted for on this? All he has to do is order that grazing leases be priced at market rates and that BLM and NFS get full cost recovery on the management of those leases and you can bet that things will turn around big time in about 5 years. So, where is he?