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Originally Posted by LexusLover
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"Livestock grazing can result in impacts on public land resources, but well-managed grazing provides numerous environmental benefits as well. For example, while livestock grazing can lead to increases in some invasive species, well-managed grazing can be used to manage vegetation. Intensively managed “targeted” grazing can control some invasive plant species or reduce the fuels that contribute to severe wildfires. Besides providing such traditional products as meat and fiber, well-managed rangelands and other private ranch lands support healthy watersheds, carbon sequestration, recreational opportunities, and wildlife habitat. Livestock grazing on public lands helps maintain the private ranches that, in turn, preserve the open spaces that have helped write the West’s history and will continue to shape this region’s character in the years to come.
"BLM Response to PEER Press Release of May 14, 2012
"A May 14, 2012, press release issued by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) – titled “Livestock’s Heavy Hooves Impair One-Third of BLM Rangelands” – contains numerous erroneous assertions based on a misunderstanding of the footnotes in the BLM’s 2011 Rangeland Inventory, Monitoring, and Evaluation (RIME) report.
"What is most important to note is that numbers in the RIME report reflect the number of allotments not meeting land health standards, with the total number of acres in those allotments, not the actual number of acres not meeting land health standards in those allotments. For example, if a portion of a 3,000-acre allotment is determined not to be meeting standards, then the entire 3,000-acre allotment is counted and reported as not meeting standards, even though a significant amount of acreage in that allotment may in reality be meeting standards. The BLM has developed and will soon be implementing a mapping process and database that will document the actual number of acres not meeting land health standards.
"Other points worth noting:
"Twelve percent, not nearly 40 percent (as PEER asserted), of grazing allotments were found not to be meeting land health standards because of livestock grazing management at the time of the assessment.
PEER’s claim that the BLM uses “ambiguous” categories – such as the term “making significant progress” – ignores the fact that these categories are identified in BLM regulations (Title 43 Code of Federal Regulations 4180.2).
"15,665 grazing allotments – that is, 73 percent of all BLM allotments – had been evaluated for land health at the end of Fiscal Year 2011, and 79 percent of those evaluated were meeting or making significant progress toward meeting all land health standards under current management.
The BLM has taken action to correct grazing management on 86 percent of the 1,925 allotments where livestock grazing was determined to be the cause for not meeting land health standards."
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