2006 Beef Business Bulletin Stories Archive
New Grazing Regulations Offer a Workable Solution
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on July 12 published its final grazing regulations that will improve the agency’s management of public lands grazing. NCBA Director of Federal Lands Jeff Eisenberg says, “We strongly support these regulations as an important effort to restore the balance between resource conservation and people.”
The new regulations, which become effective Aug. 11, will:
• authorize the BLM and a grazing permittee or lessee (or other cooperating party) to share title to future range improvements;
• phase in grazing-use decreases (as well as increases) of more than 10 percent over a five-year period;
• remove a restriction that has limited temporary non-use of a grazing permit to three consecutive years;
• require the use of existing or new monitoring data to make management decisions; and
• restores “preference,” which is used to determine the stocking capacity for allotments.
Public land ranchers control 107 million acres of private lands and greatly contribute to land management and conservation efforts. The biggest threat to wildlife and biodiversity is habitat fragmentation. Ranchers play a key role in preserving open space and maintaining wilderness areas that could otherwise be subject to development in the rapidly growing West.
For information, visit: http://www.blm.gov.