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Chronicle of Conservation in the New West
Browsing All Posts filed under »Buy Outs«
The Elephant in the Room is a Cow — Grazing Impacts on So. Utah Forests
My wife and I are both sixth generation Utahns. We own homes in both Salt Lake and Wayne counties. We were married in the Capitol Reef National Park outdoor amphitheater in 2010. Together we cherish the natural landscape of Utah, our pretty, great state. Except for one thing. We have become sensitized to the damage […]
Cliven Bundy Opens the Anarchy Door
April 18, 2014
The BLM has got its tit in a wringer. From an environmental standpoint the BLM is a classic captured agency run locally both by and for ranchers. [read more . . .]
Sage Grouse ESA Listing?
March 18, 2014
Last Friday morning a half a dozen cars full of environmentalists, mostly, are parked on the side of a rural road waiting for dawn. It is surprising cold, a bit below 20 degrees, and most of us are a bit under-dressed. As suggested, we stayed in the cars, and again as suggested by the folks parked next to us, quieted down. As the first morning twilight came on we could begin to see and hear the sage grouse males, big as turkeys, some now even out in the road, doing their spring mating ritual thing. Fantastic. [continue]
Cowpie National Monument
May 31, 2013
Grand Staircase Escalanate National Monument, Burr Trail (GSENM), May 20, 2013 It doesn’t make sense to subsidize environmental degradation on public lands. Kirsten and I went out for a couple of nights camping to the Deer Creek campground off the Burr Trail in the GSENM. After a hike down Deer Creek for less than a […]
Exclosures – August 2012
August 19, 2012
Kirsten and I went up to the Fish Lake National Forest and camped on Thousand Lake Mountain in southern Utah for a couple of nights this last Thursday through Saturday August 16-18. This area is just north of Torrey and we like to get up there in the summer just to get out and to […]
Golden Saddles
February 10, 2012
Grazing in the Intermountain West does more environmental damage than any other single activity. But ranchers have always had a choke hold on western legislators and most of the public land is grazed. One force that could overcome the ranchers grip is the market. Retirements of grazing permits (they are permits, not rights) are refered to sometimes as gold saddles. There is currently such a proposal by a legislator whose name is Adam Smith. An almost-too-perfect name for a guy coming up with an "invisible hand" market based solution. With such poetic grace on its side, the grazing retirement option may be getting a little closer. See Jodi Peterson's article in High Country News.
What does it cost to feed a gerbil for a month?
February 6, 2012
Probably more than $1.35. This is all that is charged to feed a cow AND its calf: Grazing fees on federal public lands to remain the same.
Failure of Land Use Socialism
January 4, 2012
There is nothing more harmful to the arid lands of the American West today than public land grazing. It is ironic that the Cato Institute, the leading libertarian, conservative think tank calls the results of over a century of grazing on public lands, " . . . a testimony to the failure of land-use socialism." Ouch. 70% of the over 300 million acres of public land in the West is grazed, producing less than 3% of the nation's beef. Agriculture is less than 1% of the western economies but uses nearly 80% of the water, much of that used to grow hay for to feed livestock. Ranching is a tiny little special interest. A rancher pays $1.35 per month to graze a cow and its calf. How much do you suppose it costs to feed a gerbil for a month? Yet the BLM, with $40 million of taxpayer stimulus money, wants to ignore the impact of grazing in their Rapid Ecoregional Assessments project to map ecological trends throughout the West. See more here . . . >>
Torrey House Press Web Site:
THP Green Trails 
September 23, 2014
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