RANGE magazine-Sprng 2014-Protecting the West from its Protectors · 2014-05-22 · Wuerthner’s “Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West,” J. Boone

66 • RANGE MAGAZINE • SUMMER 2014

In 1980, when I first moved from Ohio toFlagstaff, Ariz., one of the first things I didwas join the Sierra Club and, shortly

thereafter, EarthFirst!. I was excited aboutmy new home, about the mountains,canyons, rivers, and wide open spaces, andwanted to keep those things as spectacular,healthy, open and free as possible.

At the time I arrived, one of the hottestenvironmental issues was grazing privatelivestock on public lands. Grazing livestockon land both public and private was claimedto be the most damaging activity humanshad brought to the West. As one environ-

mental group put it: “The ecological costs oflivestock grazing exceed that of any otherwestern land use.”

Livestock grazing was blamed forendangering species, destroying vegetation,damaging wildlife habitats, disrupting nat-ural processes, and wreaking ecologicalhavoc on riparian areas, rivers, deserts,grasslands and forests alike. What mostcaught my attention about this campaignagainst public-lands grazing were the pho-tos of denuded, eroded, cow-turd-litteredlandscapes. Those photos served as one ofthe most effective tools for communicating

Protecting the West from its ProtectorsEnvironmentalists like me got it wrong. Words & photos by Dan Dagget.

Livestock grazing was blamedfor endangering species,

destroying vegetation, damaging wildlife habitats,

disrupting natural processes,and wreaking ecologicalhavoc on riparian areas,

rivers, deserts, grasslands and forests alike.

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SUMMER 2014 • RANGE MAGAZINE • 67

the damage described above to those, likeme, who were most likely to be concernedand recruited. And to make a long storyshort, I got involved, wrote a couple ofbooks about the topic (actually about envi-ronmentalists and ranchers workingtogether), and ended up enjoying a fairlyrewarding speaking career about the issue.

Over time, the furor over public-landsgrazing has lost much of its intensity.Although grazing continues on publiclands, it is highly regulated and significantlyreduced. In fact, it has been totally removedfrom many areas where it had been stan-dard operating procedure for more than acentury. Also, global warming/climatechange has replaced it (as well as a numberof other issues) at the top of the eco-issueshit parade.

Living in Arizona, and remaining just asconcerned about the mountains, canyons,rivers, and wide open spaces that have beenmy home now for 34 years, I have contin-ued to keep track of the areas I made such abig deal about as a wilderness advocate andcrusader for “healthy ecosystems.” As aresult, I have something to report that may

surprise you. It certainly surprised me.The surprise is that problems purportedly

caused by grazing haven’t gone away evenwhere grazing has. In fact, they have becomeworse, so much worse that a significant por-tion of western rangelands may be in worseshape today than they were when the cam-paign to protect them was at its hottest.What is different, however, is that theresponsibility for the deteriorated conditionof the western range has shifted—reversed,

in fact. Now it is protection and regulationand the advocates of those policies that arewreaking havoc on our natural heritage.

This is something you have to see tounderstand—and to believe.

Having noticed the poor and deteriorat-ing condition of the rangelands near myhome in Sedona, and on trips as far afield asBig Bend National Park in Texas and JasperNational Park in Canada, I started takingphotographs to confirm my concern. First, Irecorded the most eye-catching (and mind-blowing) examples of degradation on landsthat are now “protected” but were grazed inthe past. That ignited my curiosity andinspired me to start ferreting out old photos

of those exact same places while they werebeing grazed. I found some old photos vialocal U.S. Forest Service offices, museums,books, and the Internet. I even copied somefrom old movies (an Elvis movie, “Stay AwayJoe,” was one of my sources).

One of the first “before and after” com-parisons that caught my eye is illustrated bythe pair of photos on this page from afavorite hiking trail near Sedona. The firstphoto was taken on Dec. 29, 1957. Grazingwas ended on this site shortly after this photowas taken.

Interestingly, a forest ranger upon visit-ing this site with me in 2013 and comparingwhat she saw with the 1963 photographssaid, “Well, the grass looks healthier nowthan it did back then, except where there isn’tany.” Where there isn’t any is just abouteverywhere.

Now it is protection and regulation and the

advocates of those policiesthat are wreaking havoc on

our natural heritage.

ABOVE: Grazing was ended on this site near whathas become a popular hiking trail near Sedona,Ariz., shortly after this photo was taken on Dec.29, 1957. RIGHT: The exact same place in 2012after 55 years of protection from grazing. Themountain on the upper right in the first photodoesn’t show above the trees in the second photobecause the trees are bigger, and the point whereI took the re-photo is lower than the originalphoto point, according to my rough calculations,due to three to four feet of soil erosion.OPPOSITE: Dan Dagget is six foot three and canreach to eight feet. It’s obvious rest isn’t working.

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To give a bigger picture of what’s hap-pening here I’ve included two photos on thepage 69 from nearby on the same grazingallotment. From the look of the exposed treeroots and freshly toppled trees it appears safeto say that erosion continues in spite of thefact that it is being protected and has beenfor 30-plus years. (I would also add that it’sjust as obvious protection isn’t doing muchto heal the area.)

Seeing devastation of this degree I could-n’t help but wonder if the effects of overgraz-ing were anywhere near as bad as the effectsof protection? To answer that question, Istarted searching the Web for those denuded,eroded, cow-turd-littered images that wereused to make the case against public-landsgrazing. I wanted to compare the effects of

the activity that “ecological costs exceed thatof any other western land use” with theimpacts of the remedy that was supposed toreturn the West toconditions the pro-tectionists describedas “pristine nature.”

This is wherethings really got sur-prising. The greatmajority of those“cows destroy theWest” photos weremild, ho-hum, nobig deal in compari-son. Some evenlooked like positive-impact photos.

When a large collection of small imagesthat resulted from one of those Googlesearches showed up on my computer screen,I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what sooutraged me and recruited me 30 yearsago...is this the best they’ve got? (Twelve ofthose images are shown below.)

It must be, I concluded. These are the

LEFT: Dry Creek Allotment had been grazed for more than 50 yearswhen this photo was taken in 1963. The inset is a photo of a three-foot-square frame, by means of which the plants in a certain part ofthe transect were identified, recorded, and mapped to enable the

accurate reading andrecording of any changethat happened. In 1963 thegrass was short (most likelyit had recently beengrazed), but you can seethat plants were closetogether, the coverage wasfairy complete, and therewas little evidence oferosion.

Forty-nine years later (2012) I took a photoof that exact same site. I even relocated (andrephotographed) the frame. According to thebest information I can find, grazing wasremoved from this area “before 1981,” so, atthe time of the reshoot, the area had beenprotected for 30-plus years.

After Googling the Web for photos of “public lands grazing damage,” this iswhat I got. The question is, “Is this the best the enviros got?”


images that were published in books like“Welfare Ranching” and “Waste of the West.”These are the photos that are on the websitesof the groups still making the case to removegrazing from public lands.So, if environmental groups were (and

still are) so concerned about the effects ofgrazing on public lands, consider the threecomparisons on page 71. Well, one thingthey seem to make clear is that for those ofus who are truly concerned about restoringand sustaining the ecological health of therangelands of the American West, we’respending our money and our energy in thewrong place. Instead of campaigning to pro-tect the public lands of the West from graz-ing, we ought to be protecting them from,well, protection, which may qualify as thereal most damaging activity humans havebrought to the West.

One thing that qualifies protection forthis distinction is that the damage it causesis not only more severe, it is also more per-manent because it is a one-way street. Askprotectionist groups what they can or willdo to heal the damage shown in the photoof me looking up through those protectedtree roots or that fellow peering out fromthat huge eroded gully in the White HillsStudy Plot on page 70, and the great major-ity of them will say, “Protect it longer.” One

activist told me, “It might take more than alifetime.” The White Hills Study Plot hasbeen protected for 78 years. That soundslike a lifetime to me.I’ve written books (and articles for this

magazine) about ranchers who have healeddamage greater than anything shownamong the grazing-destroys-the-West pho-tos by using their management practicesand their animals as the means to performthat healing. In fact, I’ve done some of


From the look of the exposed tree roots andfreshly toppled trees it appears safe to say thaterosion continues in this area in spite of the factthat it has been protected for more than threedecades. (I would also add that it’s just asobvious that protection isn’t doing much to healthe area.)



ABOVE LEFT: This is from Mike Hudak’s “PhotoGallery of Ranching on Western Public Lands.” Hewrites, “This drainage in a heavily grazed field has eroded to a width of fivefeet.” ABOVE RIGHT: Why do we not hear a peep from the enviros about theapparently much more damaging effects of protection on public lands in, forinstance, where I am looking up through the roots? This drainage, in an areathat has been protected from grazing for more than 30 years, has eroded to adepth of more than 10 feet. BELOW LEFT: What about these effects of“protection”? This is the Coconino National Forest White Hills Erosion

Control Study Plot near Cottonwood, Ariz. It’s been protected since 1935 (78 years and counting). Talk about entrenched! BELOW RIGHT: In GeorgeWuerthner’s “Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of theAmerican West,” J. Boone Kauffman, Ph.D., writes: “This stream in northernNew Mexico has become ‘entrenched.’ Over time, grazing and trampling ofthe soils and banks by livestock have caused the stream to widen and cutdownward.”

To graze or not to graze,

that is the question.

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those restorations myself (I have somedynamite photos). Those restorations tookdays instead of lifetimes.

To their credit, a few environmentalgroups and collaborative associations areusing those grazing-to-heal techniques today.I suspect that, in some cases, they’re evenusing them to heal the effects of protection.But to heal damage, you have to be able tosee it, be aware that it is there, and you haveto want to heal it.

Environmentalists use the word “protect”in its vague general sense: “to protect fromhurt, injury, overuse, or whatever may causeor inflict harm.” The idea that protecting inthis sense could cause harm doesn’t make

any sense. How could saving somethingfrom harm cause it harm? If you peel awaythis blindfold of righteous semantics, howev-er, and consider the comparisons included inthis article, it becomes apparent that the eco-logical impacts of protection may actuallyexceed that of any other western land use,including grazing.

The implications of this are clear. If ele-ments of the protection industry (environ-mental groups and government agencies)want to truly achieve their stated mission—to protect the environment from whatevermay cause or inflict harm—they will have toprotect it from themselves. ■

Dan Dagget is a writer and conservativeenvironmentalist who lives in Sedona, Ariz.He has written two books: “Beyond theRangeland Conflict: Toward a West ThatWorks” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize;“Gardeners of Eden: Rediscovering OurImportance to Nature” (2007) is available viathe University of Nevada Press andAmazon.com. In 1992, he was honored as oneof the top 100 grassroots environmentalactivists in America by the Sierra Club. Hehas given talks around the West to groupsincluding the National Cowboy Poetry Gath-ering and activist vegetarians. His talks havebeen said to be “as good as public speakinggets.” He may be contacted [email protected].

Before, during and aftera project that used cowsand grazing to restorehealth to an area thatwould have produced a“cows destroy the West”photo similar to the oneprovided by Hudak.First, a few rocks wereplaced in the gully toslow water flow, thennative plant seeds werebroadcast, and hay wasspread to provide mulchand attract cattle tofertilize the mix and tillit in. It took a few yearsfor the drought to breakand sufficient rain to fallfor the project toblossom, but the resultsspeak for themselves.


Documents

RANGE magazine-Sprng 2014-Protecting the West from its Protectors · 2014-05-22 · Wuerthner’s “Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West,” J. Boone