How WIld Utah Project Affects Grazing Management
- Our Guidance Document for Grand Staircase Grazing EIS. Wild Utah Project submitted to the Grand Staircase Monument staff our guidance document - a comprehensive management model that relies on sound science to instruct BLM how to administer grazing in the Monument in keeping with their legal obligations. The guidance document cites scientific information from more than 440 papers and studies to establish the parameters and methodologies for creating a workable management "alternative" to the status quo. We will continue to pressure the Grand Staircase Monument to analyze this management alternative in its upcoming grazing Environmental Impact Statement.
- Land Use Plan Revisions. Over the past few years Wild Utah Project has submitted conservation and science-based comments to both the BLM and the Forest Service on how to approach grazing as part of its land use planning process in many BLM Resource Areas and Forests in Utah. More plan revisions for other Resource Areas and national forests are coming down the pike, and we intend to comment on all of them in regards to grazing management.
- Pressuring the BLM - Project by Project, Allotment by Allotment. We have opposed numerous grazing-related projects, including changes to allotment boundaries, construction of pipelines, and range "improvements" (or, destruction of sagebrush to produce more grass). Proposals for several projects are stalled or have been withdrawn because of our involvement. Sometimes we will focus on certain key allotments. For example, as a direct result of our involvement, cattle are now prohibited in the extensive riparian areas of the 10,000 acre Montezuma allotment in the San Juan Resource Area, and mitigation measures, such as forage utilization limits of 30%, are required on the uplands.
- Participating in Public Stakeholder Processes. We do this type of thing often. One example is the Rich County "Coordinated Resource Management" Program, where Wild Utah Project is a member of the local management planning team. Working with local ranchers, university extension services, county commissioners, federal land managers, conservation community members, and state wildlife staff, Wild Utah Project has been working to change the focus of grazing management in Rich County to be based on our ecologically based forage capacity analysis.
