Battle over grazing rights heats up in Nevada

Lisa Snedeker

Friday, Dec. 8, 2000 | 4:48 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - It's a story as old as the West. Ranchers are locked in a fight over grass, but it's not cattlemen pitted against sheepherders. This time the foes are environmentalists.

The battle over grazing rights is heating up again in Nevada, a battle that the combatants say has national significance.

More than 800 ranchers and conservationists from around the nation gathered this week far from the range - at Bally's hotel-casino - to promote the positive economic and environmental effects of grazing on private and public lands. The first national conference on grazing lands sponsored by the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative also was designed to head off opponents.

"We all have the same objective," said Doug Whisenhunt, director of western Nebraska projects for The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest private, international conservation group. "Clean air, clean water, conservation of natural resources and the preservation of natural landscape."

But don't be confused that all agree. And don't confuse these conservationists with the environmentalists who criticize subsidized grazing on public lands for costing taxpayers too much money. Others say grazing on private lands causes ecological damage - primarily erosion of soils and damage to streams.

Nevada, Whisenhunt said, is one of the hotbeds of the anti-grazing movement, which has targeted 20,000 livestock producers who have permits to graze their cattle and sheep on 170 million acres of federal rangeland in 13 states, mostly in the West.

RangeNet 2000 held in Reno earlier this month is an indication that there are more than a few discouraging words being heard on the range.

That's where a loose network of about 100 environmentalists met to organize support to end all livestock grazing on federal land.

"That's a pretty harsh statement," said DeLoyd Satterthwaite, chairman of the Nevada Rangeland Resources Commission, a state panel the Nevada Legislature created a year ago to promote livestock grazing on public lands.

Rancher Bob Drake of Davis, Okla., referred to the RangeNet attendees as "eco-terrorists" and "preservationists."

Drake, chairman of the grazing initiative, said environmentalists want to give politicians and the federal government control over grazing.

"We would much prefer to cooperate, not regulate. This war will be fought and won in the East, but it's about the West," Drake said. "What happens to the West today happens to the East tomorrow

"My concern is while they call themselves conservationists, when what they want is total control. What they want is for you and I not to be on it (public lands). We're the enemy."

But Bob Witzeman, who is active in the National Audubon Society and attended RangeNet 2000, predicted he will see an end to public livestock grazing in his lifetime. "We are not radicals," the 72-year-old retired Phoenix physician said.

Larry Walker, of Beaverton, Ore., who worked for the BLM for 26 years, helped organize RangeNet.

"Five to 10 years ago, the thought of removing livestock from public lands was unthinkable," Walker said. "Now, not only are we thinking about it, we are speaking out about it."

The environmentalists involved in RangeNet 2000 aren't interested in helping the land or the West, Drake said.

"It has nothing to do with conservation. Zero," he said. "What we are offering is conservation. What we are offering is cooperation."

So is Whisenhunt, the vice president of the Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition, who said he attended the Las Vegas conference to show that "ranchers, grassroots groups, state and federal agencies can all work together to achieve the same goals."

As a range conservationist, Whisenhunt said grazing is a natural process in most plant and ecological systems.

"To remove grazing would be a mistake," he said. "Improper grazing is the enemy. Proper grazing is necessary."

Improper grazing - such as that done out of season or for too long at a time - damages natural resources, said Whisenhunt, the commission chairman and longtime rancher from Tuscarora, Nev.

Ranchers see firsthand the results of improper grazing including soil erosion.

"What homeowner would intentionally mar, much less destroy, their home that's their main source of value?" asked John "Chip" Merrill, owner of the XXX Ranch in Crowley, Texas. "Farmers and ranchers have an additional reason: It's also their chief source of income. Why would they destroy their major asset rather than enhance the value, increase the productivity and pass it on?"

Wise grazing use of most public lands is healthier than no grazing at all, Merrill added.

"Our range conditions are much better off than they were in the 1930s and 1940s," said Benny Romero of Wellington, Nev., the vice chairman of state Rangeland Resources Commission.

The Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative coalition members include the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Sheep Industry, the National Association of Conservation Districts, National Cattlemen's Beef Association and Dairy Industry as well as the Soil and Water Conservation Society.

"If there's anything I'd like to see out of this conference is that they see (conservationists) that we're not evil," Drake said. "We're the best stewards for the grazing land. Farmers and ranchers. There are no equals."

Public lands provide a resource that should be harvested, Satterthwaite said.

"It's important for those people to understand we're (Nevada) 87 percent federally owned and we have no private land grazing to speak of," he said. "When we use public lands, we are good stewards. I think people in the East may be have the idea that because we are using government land, that we maybe have unfair advantage."

Merrill said grazing should be a local matter.

"Natural resources are entirely different because they are site specific and they are constantly changing," he said. "That can't be done from Washington (D.C.) under a court decree. This a matter of private lands and personal stewardship is extremely important to the whole nation."

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On the Net:

Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative: http://www.glci.org

The Nature Conservancy: http://www.tnc.org

RangeNet 2000: http://rangenet.org/

Nevada Cattlemen's Association: http://www.nevadacattlemen.org/