New West Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
Author’s Note: I first wrote this about 8 years ago, but the same arguments continue to crop up today with livestock proponents using the fear of sprawl as their club against any serious critiques and full accounting of the ecological impacts of livestock production. These arguments fail to consider the full geographical footprint of livestock production, nor the economic forces that drive sprawl. Availability of private land for sale does not necessarily result in sprawl. Even if ranching did limit sprawl to some degree it is a blunt tool compared to other more effective measures like land use planning and zoning. I am posting this review because the basic information has not changed significantly since I first wrote the piece. Updated references would provide essentially the same numbers–for instance, a 2002 review of Land Uses in the United States found that urbanization and developed land occupies 3% of the US.
Introduction:
Fear of sprawl and urbanization is a major obstacle to effecting change in public lands ranching policy, but the perceived connection between loss of grazing privileges on public land and loss of private ranchland to development has little basis in fact. The impact of livestock production is also minimized by many people who do not appreciate the geographical scale at which it occurs in the West. There are effective ways to protect open space and other values on private lands, but maintaining livestock on public lands is not one of them.
I have been giving talks and slideshows about the negative effects of western livestock production for many years. I go through a litany of ecological, economic, and human health costs until members of the audience are awash in facts and statistics as well as dozens of images of cow-trashed landscapes. Often my audiences are very sympathetic to environmental causes and are troubled by what they hear. But inevitably, when I suggest that at least on the public lands, livestock grazing be eliminated, someone will raise an objection. It always goes something like this: “Well, I agree livestock do damage. But if you eliminate grazing on public lands, the ranchers will be forced to subdivide on the private lands. Then we’ll get more houses, condos, and people. Isn’t that far worse than what the cows do?”
The answer, in a word, is “No.”
First, condos and sprawl, bad as they are, are not worse than ranching. Primarily, this is because “sprawl” and all other urban/suburban and second-home development takes up a relatively tiny area of the West, whereas livestock grazing and crop production to support livestock takes up immense acreages. While I do not dispute the damage done to natural systems by sprawl, livestock production also costs a great deal in terms of both ecological health and taxpayer dollars.
Second, the notion that protecting ranchers will preserve open space is wrongly premised on the belief that without access to public lands forage, permittees will inevitably go out of business and sell their ranches for development. I believe there is compelling evidence to suggest a very different dynamic driving development in the West, rather than rancher hardship.
Finally, “cows versus condos” is not only a falsehood; it is a an impediment to clear thinking and effective action on the problems of habitat conservation and preservation of open space on both public and private lands. So long as land protection advocates focus on a false choice between cows or condos, they ignore proven ways to protect ecological values on private lands as well as continue to allow livestock to degrade ecosystems. Conservationists must move beyond “cows versus condos” if they are serious about long-term protection of western lands.
The Geography of Sprawl and Agriculture
Elsewhere in this book, the ecological costs of growing livestock are enumerated. Here, I focus on the scale of that activity for the simple reason that most people seem to have very little sense of comparison between the physical footprint of cities and subdivisions in the West and that of livestock production.
In order to help you think about the geography of the West, let’s pretend you are going on an airplane flight. Your journey begins in Denver, say, or Phoenix, or Salt Lake. As your plane waits in the queue for take-off, you are surrounded by asphalt. Not far off are city streets, buildings, and bustle. When you land, in Sacramento perhaps, or Portland, or Los Angeles, it’s the same thing. But if you look out the window while you are flying, that is not what you see for hour after hour. If you are fortunate to have a clear day, you see this: mountains, valleys, plains, deserts. Occasional towns, if you happen to be peering out at the moment the jet rushes over them. Now and then, especially if your route is along the Pacific coast, you see the tell-tale gridwork of urban centers. But the dominant impression-if you judge it fairly, if you bother to watch that window between take-off and landing-is open land. I.e., land without human residents, or at least very few. Indeed, once outside of the major urban centers and resort communities, open space is the dominant feature of the West.
But let’s pretend again that you are flying. This time, you are wearing very special eyeglasses. They are designed to recognize and alter the hue of any land that is dedicated to livestock production, much like Landsat photos that shade areas differently, according to dominant plant communities. I’ll call these glasses “Livestock Lenses.” Let’s say the land looks red wherever it is utilized in some fashion for the raising of livestock. In the West, that’s primarily cattle, a few sheep. So, when you fly over rangelands, public or private, you see red. Over the West, there’s a whole lot of land used as livestock range, so you see lots of red-flying over mountains, over forests, over deserts. But there’s also cropland that is dedicated to raising feed for cattle-hay and alfalfa, primarily. And thus you see valley after valley, extensive flatlands, all red, or nearly so. And then, these very special Livestock Lenses have a mechanism for detecting the degree to which water is also used for livestock. Rivers that are partially diverted for irrigation, to grow cattle feed, these are pink. From so high up in a jet, you probably cannot see all the tiny rivulets and streams threading, crimson, vermilion, across the landscape. But they are there-some impounded or diverted for irrigation, many more serving as watering troughs for grazing animals, and also as conduits for manure and soils eroded by pounding hooves.
By the time your plane descends and you pull off the Livestock Lenses, you have seen a landscape dominated by one color-and one use. For that is what the West-especially the arid West-is: a geography dominated by livestock use.
Indeed, livestock production dominates the entire country, not just the West. The land area utilized for livestock production-including rangelands, pasture, and the production of forage crops (corn, soybeans, alfalfa, etc.)-occupies 65-75 percent of the total U.S. acreage, excluding Alaska, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics ( USDA 1997b). Four crops account for approximately eighty percent of all acreage planted per year in this country: hay, corn, soybeans, and wheat. All but wheat are grown primarily to feed livestock (USDA 1997a). In comparison, (and again, not counting Alaska), the amount of land taken up by sprawl and development is slightly more than four percent (USDA 1997a). In the West, urban and suburban landscapes, including fairly low-density subdivisions, occupy an even smaller fraction of land than in the country as a whole. Sprawl, though a serious and usually permanent blight where it occurs, is not the major ecological threat to the natural systems of the West for the very reason that it is-despite the connotation of the term-confined to a limited area. (I readily acknowledge that cities are drawing resources from a huge area, and their ecological footprint is great-but that is a different debate than the matter of sprawl eating up the western landscape. Per capita resource use is an issue of lifestyle for all Americans, urban and rural.)
The latest Geographical Analysis Program (California Dept. of Fish and Game 1995) reported that less than 4.5 percent of California–the most heavily populated western state–is urbanized, and that figure includes all highways, malls, subdivisions, and industrial parks. Most of the human population is concentrated in a few large metropolitan centers like San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Agriculture, however, is far more pervasive, affecting about seventy percent of the state, by a conservative estimate. This includes croplands, as well as pasture and rangeland. The majority of this land is dedicated to livestock production. Very little grows crops directly consumed by people. For example, about 1.5 percent of California’s land area is used to grow vegetables (California Dept. of Food and Agriculture 1998; California Dept. of Conservation 2000). And from this relatively small amount of land comes about half of all the vegetables grown in the United States (USDA 1997b).
In Montana, according to recent figures compiled by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, some 95 percent of the state land area is occupied by fewer than four people per square mile. These are “frontier” lands, according to the old 1890 U.S. census standards. Yet despite the fact that most of the state is essentially uninhabited, numerous native species are imperiled or significantly reduced in numbers, primarily because of agriculture-which in Montana usually means livestock production. These species include bison, wolf, grizzly bear, swift fox, black-footed ferret, Columbia sharptail grouse, sage grouse, and a host of others. What is particularly disturbing about this list is that all these species were once widespread and abundant in Montana. None of the forgoing animals have specialized habitat requirements. It is clear that “open space” is not the same as good quality wildlife habitat (Wuerthner 1997).
Thus, it is the pervasiveness of livestock impacts, and the huge geographical scale at which livestock production occurs, that makes it a far greater threat to the native plant and animal species of the West than sprawl. This is not to minimize the serious consequences of sprawl and development where it is occurring. Still, it should be recognized that this development is relatively concentrated and occupies a small proportion of the western landscape.
Demand Drives Development
Now, even if one is inclined to disagree with my assertion that livestock production is a disaster for the West’s native species and ecosystems, that doesn’t mean ranching can preserve open space. Even if you think livestock are ecologically benign, supporting ranchers does not safeguard ecosystem values. That’s because ranching can’t and doesn’t prevent subdivisions. The problem is complex, but one has only to realize that most western cities sit on land that was once ranched, farmed, or grazed to see that the mere presence of agricultural land did not stop urbanization in the past. And it is not stopping it now.
The growth of subdivisions and sprawl is driven by demand, not the mere availability of land. In fact, sheer population growth accounts to a significant degree for the expanding boundaries of most western cities. A study reviewing census data since 1970 shows that per capita land consumption, or the average area of land physically occupied by people, is actually declining in many western cities (Kolankiewicz and Beck 2001). And at the regional level, sprawl in California, the Southwest and the mountain West is overwhelmingly due to population growth, and very little is due to increases in per capita land consumption (Kolankiewicz and Beck 2001). Net in-migration, the major reason for population growth in the West as a whole, is fueled by a number of factors, including availability of employment and amenities. Most sprawl is occurring near existing large cities where jobs, good schools, transportation centers, and diverse cultural offerings are located (Holechek 2001).
Recreation-related development (“condos”) is another type of sprawl occurring in the more rural areas of the West. It is a phenomenon of highly scenic areas with superlative opportunities for activities such as skiing, fishing, boating and other outdoor pursuits (Power 1996). Again, however, the growth of select recreation/ resort/ retirement sites in the West probably cannot be separated from population pressures overall and accompanying declines in urban quality of life. Whether one looks at spreading cities or burgeoning “hot spots,” the fact is that without addressing the demand for land created by increasing numbers of people in general, any effort to prevent sprawl is ultimately doomed to failure.
It is easy to see why the simple availability of land is not the driving force behind sprawl when you look at places that are not experiencing population growth. You do not find much threat of subdivision in the middle of North Dakota or eastern Montana-places where tens of millions of acres are for sale. Why not? Because marginal agricultural economics plus mere availability of private land does not add up to sprawl. A landowner may greatly desire a sale to developers, but he or she will not get it, unless there is already demand for land. Very few people want to live in North Dakota except the people already there. No demand, no sprawl.
Low demand has several effects. First, it keeps land prices low. Low land price means that another rancher or farmer can afford to purchase the land of a neighbor and pay off the mortgage running cows on it. When land prices rise–as they have done in some of the more scenic parts of the West–it becomes impossible to get into ranching, or to expand one’s existing operations. The rising cost of getting into ranching is aggravated by declining profitability of livestock production (Holechek 2001). Only wealthy “hobby” ranchers can afford to purchase ranches (Petersen and Coppock 2001). Indeed, many ranchers think of their ranches as retirement nest eggs and have every intention of eventually selling their property for development. One study in Utah found that 43 percent of public lands ranchers approaching retirement age state a desire to sell their land to developers (Petersen and Coppock 2001).
High land prices (i.e. high demand for real estate) in an area can hurt the ability of ranchers to pass their land on to the next generation, even when that is their wish (Petersen and Coppock 2001). In addition, many children of ranching families are simply not interested in taking over the business (Liffmann et al. 2000). There are many factors driving this trend, including better economic opportunities outside agriculture. The high price of land, where this is the case, not only makes selling to developers more attractive to present owners, it becomes one more reason children can’t or won’t continue to run the ranch. If there are several children in a family, deciding who gets to keep the ranch potentially worth millions of dollars become a thorny issue. For many, the easiest solution is to sell it and split the profits among all heirs.
In the past, low land prices permitted western producers to compete with more productive agricultural regions through an economy of scale. Western lands generally support fewer animals per acre than more equitable climes, but ranchers could easily buy and own thousands of acres or acquire vast tracts of public lands, compensating somewhat for low productivity by maintaining large holdings. Rising land values have undercut the viability of this option. Ranchers can no longer expand their land holdings and pay off the mortgage with a low value product such as beef (Liffman et al. 2000; Petersen and Coppock 2001; Holechek 2001). Yet the minimum herd size, hence land base, needed to be an economically sustainable operations continues to rise, further undercutting the long term stability of the western livestock industry.
An increasing problem for the livestock industry is simply the higher cost of doing business. For generations ranchers have externalized many of their operational expenses-primarily to the environment and also to taxpayers, who subsidize ranching in a myriad of ways. Whether one is talking about below market-value grazing fees on public lands; taxpayer-subsidized irrigation projects; or the numerous environmental costs which the land and society must bear; ranchers have lowered production expenditures because the rest of us have carried the true debt for them. Now, as the American citizenry wakes up to the losses-ecological and economic-ranchers are being asked more and more to pay the full costs. Given the financially marginal nature of most western livestock operations, this can only hasten the demise of ranching in the West.
All of these difficulties are exacerbated by globalization of the market. Increasingly, the price ranchers get for their cows is determined by the world market, not regional or even national economic forces. Yet, production costs are local. Cheaper beef can be grown elsewhere-either because in other, moister, milder regions, the costs are inherently less, or because in other parts of the world, labor and land are less expensive. There is very little the rancher can do to alter these distant situations.
The False Dichotomy of Condos or Cows
The final problem is the false dichotomy of condos or cows. In truth, over much of the West the current economic choice is cows, or…well, there aren’t a lot of other options. Some ranchers sell out to other ranchers-increasingly, the new owners are corporations, or distant millionaires (Petersen and Coppock 2001). Other ranchers turn to game farming, or other pursuits that are dubious from both ecological and public interest perspectives. In some places, the unfolding reality is cows and condos: livestock grazing continues on rangelands, while the limited wildlife habitat that did exist on private lands shrinks ever more.
Critics of eliminating livestock on public lands erroneously assume that the only way of forestalling private land subdivision is by keeping ranchers going, by whatever means possible. Yet, this is wrongheaded for two reasons. First, as I’ve explained above, the economic forces at play are both complex and powerful. For the most part, there is little ranchers or ranching proponents can do to influence beef prices, nor are they going to stop the public cry for cleaner water, restored species, intact ecosystems and the like. And unless laws are passed to forcibly halt newcomers at state or county borders, it will be very difficult to put a lid on demand for real estate in places either picturesque-like Paradise Valley, Montana-or booming with opportunity-like Silicon Valley, California. Where land prices rise high enough-in other words, where the demand is great enough-most ranchers are tempted to cash in, if not this year or next, then a decade hence. Relying on the good will and endurance of ranchers is not a good strategy for ensuring long-term land protection.
Furthermore, despite the either/or dynamic implied by the “condos or cows” mantra, there is not a direct relationship between loss of public lands grazing privileges and subsequent sale of private ranch land. Surveys among livestock producers have shown that lifestyle and independence are the prime motivations for remaining in ranching (Rowe et al. 2001). If access to public lands forage is reduced, many ranchers will seek to stay in the business by modifying their operations: buying more private land, reducing herd size to fit existing private land holdings, and obtaining outside employment to bolster family income (Rowe et al 2001).
Perhaps one of the most unfortunate consequences of the “condos or cows” mentality is the lack of initiative among a variety of conservation groups and open space advocates in taking up truly effective private land conservation strategies. Instead of developing and supporting PROACTIVE mechanisms for land protection, they are lulled into supporting a PASSIVE methods that utilizes a flawed strategy dependent upon rancher beneficence to maintain open space in the face of rising land values. There are many proactive strategies examples from around the country of approaches to open space protection that don’t depend on the acceptance of continued degradation of both public and private lands. Below I briefly describe a few. However, there are probably many more creative solutions that could be imagined and implemented, if only we could get away from the paralyzing fear that without cows, our only option is houses and concrete.
* Zoning and Planning. These are fighting words in much of the West, but if you care about protecting both social and ecological values, zoning and planning really work. Oregon has a state-wide zoning system that limits all new development within designated urban growth boundaries. This automatically protects open space outside of the urban regions. It also has the effect of keeping agricultural land prices low, since these are unavailable for residential development. The Willamette Valley which is home to 70 percent of Oregon’s population including the cities of Salem, Eugene, and Portland, has 95% of the land area in agricultural production (with plenty of ecological impacts as a result) timber or other rural land uses.
* Land Acquisition. Many ranchers don’t like this option too well, either. But the public can decide to make funds available for willing sellers of land that hold important wildlife, scenic, or recreational values. Or private organizations, like land trusts, may purchase significant properties and either donate them to the government, or keep them as private preserves. Of course, if cows remain on the purchased lands, I would argue that much of the ecological benefit of the acquisition is lost.
* Development Rights. These can be purchased or traded. In the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, for instance, landowners can “sell” their development rights to developers in urban areas. The urban developers can then apply to city governments to build higher density housing than normally permitted. The law allows them to mitigate, in essence, for the high density in the city by preserving open space in the barrens. In either the case of land acquisition or acquisition of development rights, protection against sprawl is far more secure than with a policy of hoping ranchers will act against their economic self-interest, even as the market pressures on them increase. And remember, while outright purchase and acquisition of development rights can be expensive, development is not a threat over most of the West. We don’t have to buy all the private ranch land to afford reasonable protection against condos or subdivisions. Many properties will remain open space, no matter what conservationists do or don’t do.
Those who suggest we don’t have the money to buy up critical lands forget that we currently bestow billions of dollars upon the agricultural industry in the form of subsidies and direct payments. In the fall of 1999, for example, Congress granted an emergency $8.7 billion relief package on top of $26 billion it was already doling out that year to agriculture. Of this, tobacco growers alone received $340 million to make up for a decline in tobacco sales-the result of anti-smoking campaigns (for which taxpayers have also paid to a large extent). To give some perspective, $340 million is more than was spent in 1999 on all federal land acquisitions, in all 50 states. There is plenty of money in the federal budget, if the political will can be mustered to prioritize permanent protection of habitat and open space. Political will for such investments is undermined by those advocating ranching as a mechanism to protect and preserve open space and wildlife habitats.
Americans are clearly willing to fund land acquisition if they believe no other alternatives are viable. Florida–not known as a particularly liberal, or “green,” bastion–has spent more than $450 million a year on land acquisition programs since 1991 (Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Greenways Program 2001). In a state that has seen more development pressure than most of the West will see for the next several centuries, Floridians realized that the only effective way to ensure open space was preserved was to buy it. They have reiterated their commitment to this strategy by voting several times in favor of land protection bond measures.
We must get beyond the misleading and destructive belief in “condos or cows.” While thousands of acres go under the bulldozer because of a misplaced faith in ranching as a land protection strategy, hundreds of millions of acres continue to be pounded under the hooves of cattle. While the search goes on for “win/win” solutions between stockgrowers and conservationists, what is more likely to happen is the “lose/lose” reality of unguided, uncontrolled development in the beauty spots and hot markets of the West, and unabated abuse of the lands and waters that belong to all the people-the public lands-and ultimately, to all the wild creatures that inhabit them.
What would a West without cows be like? Endless subdivisions and cities? Hardly. It would be just this: millions of acres, rich with newly invigorated native grasses; robust with sagebrush and other shrubs no longer bulldozed or chained to make way for cattle feed; swept by growing herds of elk, wild sheep, pronghorn antelope and bison; vibrant with the energy of predators large and small-from wolves to black-footed ferrets, from grizzlies to swift fox, kestrel, and burrowing owl. The West, without cows, would be thousands of miles of clear streams running deep, filling up with fat native fishes, welcoming back along their margins flocks of raucous song birds, and a slow, quiet tide of lesser-known beasts: reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates of all kinds. Relieved of livestock, the West would see the re-appearance of the great cottonwood galleries, the re-greening of lowland meadows, the re-gained curvature and grace of flat valley rivers. This, and much more, would be the West without cows.
Next time you fly over it, imagine a West like that.
References
California Dept. of Conservation. 2000. California Farmland Conversion Report 1996-1998. Pub. #FM 2000-01. CDC, Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program. Sacramento, CA.
California Dept. of Fish and Game. 1995. GAP analysis of mainland California: an interactive atlas of terrestrial biodiversity and land management (CD-ROM). CDFG, Natural Heritage Division. (http://www.biogeog.ucsb.edu.projects/gap/gap_home.html).
California Dept. of Food and Agriculture. 1998. California Agricultural Resource Directory. CDFA. Sacramento, CA. (http://www.cdfa.ca.gov).
Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection and Greenways Program. 2001. Tallahassee, FL. (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/gwt/).
Holechek, Jerry L. 2001. Western ranching at the crossroads. Rangelands 23(1): 17-21.
Kolankiewicz, Leon and Roy Beck. 2001. Weighing sprawl factors in large U.S. cities. NumbersUSA. Arlington, VA.
Liffmann, Robin H., Lynn Hunsinger, and Larry C. Forego. 2000. To ranch or not to ranch: Home on the urban range? J. Range Management 53(4): 362-379.
Montana GAP Analysis. 1998. (CD-ROM). University of Montana, Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, Wildlife Spatial Analysis Lab. Missoula, MT.
Petersen, Regina and D. Layne Coppock. 2001. Economies and demographics constrain investment in Utah private grazing lands. J. Range Management 54(2): 106-114.
Power, Thomas M. 1996. Lost landscapes and failed economies: The search for a value of place. Island Press. Covelo, CA.
Rowe, Helen I., Matt Shinderman, and E. T. Bartlett. 2001. Change on the range. Rangelands 23(2): 6-9.
USDA. 1997a. America’s private land, a geography of hope. ISBN 0-16-049127-4. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Washington, DC.
USDA. 1997b. National Resources Inventory. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Washington, DC. (revised Dec. 2000) (http://www.nhq.nrcs.usda.gov/NRI/1997).
Wuerthner, George. 1997. Subdivisions and extractive industries. Wild Earth (autumn 1997).
I appreciate the authors efforts to not dumb down the sprawl conversations to cows and condos. But in his efforts to bring this to light, what is amiss is the QUALITY of land that is being lost. Usually, it is the high quality lands that are lost first. These are the most scenic and fertile lands and are usually lost to sprawl because they are the most beautiful, near water sources, and closest to historic settlement patterns. If we were losing desert lands near no water resources, pretty trees for our yards, or near scenic viewsheds, I’m sure the sprawl debate on the ecosystem front would fade – and fade more towards CO2, traffic, and community social health issues.
John
As Mickey Garcia points out in the above comment a small amount of land is actually developed.
Nevertheless, I wouldn’t disagree with your point about the quality of land being paved over and/or otherwise developed and/or the unwise places where development sometimes occurs (river flood plains, etc.).
The question in my mind is whether championing a land use like livestock production on public lands really has a significant influence upon private lands development. I think other factors are more important.
Furthermore, since ranching is really uneconomical and likely is to remain so, relying on ranching to preserve open space is guaranteed to fail in the end, even if it appears to have moderate success in the present.
This is not to suggest losing even another 1-2% of prime farmland, river riparian area, etc. is necessarily a good thing, but my main point is that championing a dying industry isn’t the best strategic means of guiding development–if that be your goal.
We can think about where, when, and what is appropriate and take pro-active steps to guide development whether that is through incentives, regulation, or whatever is open to discussion.
There are a lot of good ideas being used all over the country to guide development from tax incentives, conservation easements, out right fee purchase, land trades and so forth.
I do think that the condos vs cows argument is a distraction and keeps people from thinking more creatively about what might achieve the goals they have.
George, I agree entirely with how you phrased the issue in your follow-up comment relative to land policy and guiding development in the proper way. My comment is more of a reaction to focusing your argument on statistical-descriptors like “only 5%”. It is misleading and veiling of the much broader and serious issue (which I’m sure we’re all aware of) – the loss of existing fertile farmlands/soils, potential agricultural lands, scenic viewsheds, and perhaps other more subtle community assets like recreational open space whether for hunting or hiking. The “only 5%” focus is like saying the earth will “only warm” by a 2 degree celsius. Focusing on either of these statistics could have disastrous effects – the total loss of greenland’s ice sheet say, or the loss of 50% of the most productive and fertile farmlands/ranch lands. Other than that, your article is well grounded and I’m sure we’re on the same page.
John
Your point is well taken. Quality of land affected is certainly important. To give one example, only 1% of the West is riparian habitat, but 80% of all wildlife rely on that 1% for some part of their life needs, so saying only 1% of the West was impacted–could be a disaster if that 1% were mostly riparian areas.
No whining here from what I’ve read, Mickey. Maybe “those latest settlers hypocritically masquerading as environmentalists” are the only ones who will eventually end up saving what’s left of wilderness and wildlife’s RIGHT to exist.
Nice article George!
Thank you posting the truth regarding the cows or condos myth.
Wellfare ranching should mandatory reading in all public schools.
Hi,
It’s good to see someone point out that cows versus condos is not a good solution to environmental problems. Efforts to pit one environmentally questionable practice against another in order to effect a cure won’t work, since it avoids addressing either of the issues. If you buy into the cows versus condos myth, the condos go up somewhere else that may not be a good choice for development either and the livestock keep on doing what they do to the environment. Sometimes the condos go up on the ranch anyway as the rancher gets into the idea of cows plus condos or some variation thereof, -and this too might be marketed as a green thing. If you want to stop sprawl, then legislate against sprawl, don’t waste time singing hosannas to the livestock industry.
Whether it’s the idea that cows versus condos will save the land or that cows plus condos will save the land, the common denominator is an effort to buffer the livestock industry. But there are usually more choices than the binary either/or choices that we are presented with, and the either /or choices are often presented to us in order to keep us from thinking about the other possibilities, some of which include neither livestock nor sprawl.
Best Regards,
James Newlin
Tamarack Resort is the perfect example of condos replacing cows. Condos, townhomes, custom 5,000+ sq ft cabins, ect. It didn’t come with any reduction of grazing on public lands. The lots are 0.1 – 1 acre.
Less than 10% of Valley County is privately owned and unemployment has been around 20% this winter. It’s 25% on the other side of the West Mtn ridge in Adams County. Tourism doesn’t proide enough jobs in a downturn.
It’s amazing how many people who talk the “green” talk have 3,000+ sq ft second homes in this area. I’m sure heating all that open space all winter long to keep the pipes from freezing doesn’t contribute to global warming. They are probably the same people who leave their cars running in the Post Office parking lot while they run in to pick up their mail. Very “green”.
Becky, I’m guessing that might be a regional custom. Stop by any ranch supply store on a subzero morning, looks like the parking lot’s on fire from the exhaust fumes, or go thru any little town with a good spot for breakfast or lunch and count all the cattle trucks stacked up along the curb, running, anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and that happens regardless of the temps outside.
Mr. Wuerthner,
Do you place any stock in the reaserch done by Dr. Knight at CSU?
Yes I know Knight. We have communicated over the years and I have read many of his papers. But you might guess, we come to vastly different conclusions.
Richard Knight has his heart in the right place, and he has done some good work demonstrating how subdivisions and even recreation can negatively impact wildlife. Nevertheless, in my view, he fails in his appreciation of geographical scale and footprint just as most people do when they consider or fail to consider the impacts of livestock production.
. That is not to say his conclusions are wrong in the way he has framed the issues. But I disagree with the way he has framed his issues.
I think he fails to give significance to the full impacts of livestock production–which is more than just a cow munching grasses. That’s the first problem. And this is a very common problem done by livestock advocates. They talk about “grazing” as if that is the only issue. But livestock production is predator control, spread of weeds, forage competition, disease transmission, use of water for irrigated forage production and subsequent dewatering of streams, and so forth.
Now subdivisions are guilty of many of these same problems, but this is where scale comes in. For instance, let’s look at water. Yes urban cities use water. And water is scarce in the West. But the bulk of all water consumed is for AG not urban dwellers. In Montana, for instance, more than 97% of the water taken from streams is used for Ag and most of that is growing livestock feed. So one can correctly say that growing cities are using more and more water, but the amount consumed by cities is dwarfed by the amount used by livestock.
So Knight has done some good work showing how even subdivisions have done and continue to be a problem and I don’t want anyone to suggest that development is neutral. It’s not. It’s just that livestock affects far more of the West than all the urbanization put together. So if you are going to address the land use that is having the greatest impact, any rational review would focus on livestock. Unfortunately we are not rational in our response to livestock.
- Show quoted text -
Thanks for your response,
I thought primarily that Knight’s work showed the differences between species diversity on ranches versus ranchettes. Just as an aside I am a Range Con. and our veiwpoints are vastly different but I appreciate civil discourse.
I worked as a range con too.
Yes that is part of Knight’s work. As I said, he framed it a bit differently than I would and of course that determines what you get for an answer.
The other point that i tried to make is that it doesn’t matter whether you think subdivisions are worse than ranching, promoting ranching as a way to keep lands intact isn’t working. There are a host of social and economic reasons for this, but if your goal is to maintain open space, ranching has not done this well. If it were effective, we wouldn’t be having a debate on this matter because there would be no condos out there.
That seems to me to be more a function of economics. Regardless of ones position on ranching, ranchland does provide for open space. The presence/absence of condos etc does not change the fact. I would ask the question what can effectively keep open space if ranches were taken out of the equation.
Buck
I’ve answered that in the essay. Ranching is at best a coincidental way to preserve open space. It’s not targeted either. Keep in mind that not all ranchland is going to be subdivided. It depends on where it’s located. So that’s good in a way since you can target your strategy to places that are threatened.
The only way to be certain of preserving open space is to buy it and dedicate it to that purpose. Short of outright fee purchase, the next best thing is to use zoning and/or conservation easements. But in many cases, the conservation easements are nearly as expensive as outright purchase, so I tend to favor fee purchase.
When people suggest we don’t have the money for such things, I remind that we paid more than 2.8 billion for the Conservation Reserve Program which only “rents” the land for a ten year period, and doesn’t guarantee that it won’t be sold and/or farmed again. That’s a lot of money if directed towards outright fee purchase and/or even conservation easements could protect a lot of land.
I’d rather have the food I eat come from Montana than from Argentina. The highest “human” use of many western lands is grazing, and it can be done in an ecologically sound fashion. In fact, grazing is much more compatible with wildlife than farming. Western wildlife habitat (much of which has been grazed) still exists. The prairies of Iowa and the midwest are almost non-existant now.
I’m aware that the vast majority of livestock in this country are not raised in a sustainable manner, but the constant assault on those who provide us with food gets under my skin. The grassfed lamb that filled my freezer from Helmville is much more environmentally sound than soybeans from Brazil.
Of course there are public lands that are not being grazed appropriately or should not be grazed at all, and that should be rectified. Instead of a witch hunt against those who use federal lands, let’s reform our food production system so that it is sustainable. That’s much more ecologically sound than “preserving” our landscapes and exporting our food and raw material production to other countries that do not have the same environmental protections that we do.
Erin
Erin
As an ecologist I have never seen a commercial grazing operation that did not have a lot of impacts on natural systems. Yes there are better and worse ways to grow livestock, but the issue isn’t about what is better. Arguing about what is the best way to grow cows or sheep is like arguing about the best seat on the deck of the titanic.
We don’t need to grow livestock to feed ourselves, and at the very least we could grow and consume a lot less meat. And that would be good not only for the land, but for the health of people as well.
Since you mentioned sheep, let’s look at the mulitiple ways that domestic sheep degrade the natural environment. Domestic sheep transmit disease to wild sheep. Domestic sheep pollute water, displace native herbivores, and compete for food with native herbivores. We kill lots of predators to keep the sheep growers happy. Domestic sheep compact soils. They spread weeds. And so on.
And even the best sheep operations have many, if not all, of these impacts. And the fact is that we don’t need to suffer these impacts–especially on public lands.
You’re correct that acre for acre a field of row crops is more damaging than an acre of grazed land. But that is where scale comes in. The majority of our ag land is grazed. I estimate that more than 700 million acres are grazed in the US. That’s counting public rangelands, private rangelands, pasture, and grazing in forested areas (common in the southeast).
Then there are the row crops largely grown to feed livestock. We have 130 milion acres in hay. 90 million acres in feeder corn. 75 million acres in soybeans. Most of these crops are fed to domestic livestock and the bulk to domestic cattle.
The majority of our croplands do not grow food for people–and that includes soybeans.
For instance less than 2% of all soybeans is consumed directly by humans. Nearly all those soybeans and most of the soybeans, corn, even quite a bit of wheat grown in this country goes to feed livestock not people. The actual amount of land that would be required to feed this nation if we ate a lot less meat is actually quite small. So while the impacts of row crops are significant, they are proportionately much less than the effects of livestock grazing and production.
George’s rather ridiculous theory and base line for this article is that livestock grazing and farming for livestock are bad.
His theories don’t hold much water if one look’s at the whole picture. Wildlife has flourished due to the ranching and farming industry. Look at all of the rancher water developments on the range land, and with modern range land grazing techniques the land is much more productive and sustainably so, and a big share of the western range land is in better shape now than ever and most is improving. The original reap and pillage of some of the early land and cattle barons, set the bar for range land abuse, and that stigma is still alive today.
We have a multitude of professional range managers trained by our universities and with many innovative management techniques such as the Alan Savory theories, much of our western range land is not only producing beef to feed the nation but enabling most wildlife species to thrive, and the health of the range land improving at the same time.
When you take the cattle off bad things happen to the land scape, in that the wildlife leave and go to where the tender grass is on the grazed lands. Take for example the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge southwest of Tucson. This huge ranch was bought by conservationists and the government and turned into a preserve for the main purpose of saving the Masked Hooded Bobwhite Quail. You will be hard pressed to fine any quail, deer and even jackrabbits on the Refuge. You only have to go out on the edges where livestock grazing still takes place and there you find the wildlife. Several of the ranches the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation bought and retired the grazing on, well you guessed right, the elk are on the neighboring ranches and spend hardly any time on the grown up and rank grasses on the so called preserved land.
New Mexico State University’s Range Improvement Task Force has done a lot of research on anything to do with grazing and in particular the true costs of running a public lands ranch and related values versus private land grazing. If the anti grazing establishment that always complains of subsidized public land grazing would care to research this you will be surprised that public land grazing lease rates compare about equal with the cost of public land grazing. Besides this a big share of western ranches can exist only because they have a mix of private and public land.
It is amazing how much disparity there are among range cons., and they were all educated in the same universities. It mostly depends on what agency or who they work for that usually determines their actions and not necessarily their true beliefs.
I would much rather see a few cows out on the range than the ugly sprawl of housing developments popping up all over the west. Cows aren’t nearly as destructive as a mass of humanity driving their ATV’s all over, the huge clouds of dust on the dirt roads leading out to these subdivisions and the littering, poaching, and general hub bub of human activity.
I guess I’m just an old red neck hayseed that likes the peace and serenity of wide open spaces where our deer and elk herds roam and are healthy, and can attest to how cattle grazing complements them.
Tom, you’re about as disingenuous as they come with all that fake down-home “aah shucks” stuff. The history of Catron County, from chaining environmental activists to trees to let them die to poaching endangered Mexican wolves, is far more sinister than you pretend and you seem to have been right there for most of it. Why don’t you slither on back to your sulfurous den and leave George alone?
Cowgirl
As a former “professional range manager” I can tell you that you’re absolutely wrong about livestock impacts.
Wildlife has hardly flourished because of ranching. There are more endangered species due to livestock production in the west than any other factor.
Just look at Montana and the species that are listed or candidates for listing–how many are due to “subdivisions” vs. livestock production. Wolf, blackfooted ferret, blacktailed prairie dog, swift fox, Montana grayling, sage grouse, Columbia sharptail grouse, and so on. And all the species that are negatively affected like bison that are shot because of cows, or the wolves being shot because of livestock and/or bighorn sheep that are being killed or die from disease from domestic animals
. The litany of species impacted is huge.
It’s even worse in drier locations like Arizona where more than a hundred species are directly impacted by livestock production.
Finally, as to seeing a few cows on the range vs. houses, keep in mind that the bulk of the rangelands we are discussing are public lands where no houses can be built. About 250 million acres of public lands are grazed. This is a huge amount of terrain. Keep in mind that in the entire US only 60 million acres is urbanized, developed or in sprawl. And that is the entire US!
If our political ancestors had not imported domestic European livestock to the new world and had practiced sustained yield harvesting of native grazers, instead of harvesting to extinction,to this day, we would have plenty of meat to eat and parts of the ecosystem wouldn’t be in such sad shape. Before the white man came and began using the land as nature had not intended, the American West, together with the great plains was a very productive ecosystem in terms of biomass and meat. The Europeans that settled here were too dumb to notice how natural abundance worked and many of their descendants still are just as dumb. Let the Salmon swim and the Buffalo roam and the Deer, Elk, Moose and Antelope play and we’ll be fat and happy again.
George,
Much of the public land is checker-boarded with private lands and the subdivisions are more often than not butted up against the public land. It sure takes away from a trip to the forest when it is bordered with housing developments.
As far as your weak argument on how cows affect wildlife and endangered species, maybe you need to take the blinders off and look at the many examples of the benefits of grazing in example after example in some of what I posted in my above comment. Another prime example of your bias is that in Arizona the so called endangered Tortoise was supposedly being wiped out because of cattle and it has been proven that the Tortoise are actually thriving and in better numbers due to cattle. In some of the original studies done by the enviro so called scientists, they used some completely erroneous information and numbers to try and make their case. Kind of like Climate-Gate. There is so much junk science out there on endangered/threatened species that it makes you sick when many if not most of these critters and plants are not really endangered or threatened. The enviro groups make hay with the endangered species with this junk science and then they use the courts to enforce their faulty and trumped up assumptions.
Another case is the XXX Ranch on the Blue River in Arizona. When the Forest Service took the cattle off many years ago the deer left and have never returned. Case after case and yet you turn a blind eye to much of what is actually happening out on the ground. I wish you could debate some of the professional range people at New Mexico State University and in particular their Range Improvement Task Force and men with Doctors’ degrees in range science. They could blow your weak theories out of the water any day of the week.
Grazing done right is good for the landscape, because the eco-system in the West and for that matter much of the World has come into “being” and grass developed because of grazing not
the other way around. This is where range science has learned from the Allen Savory theories and is being incorporated into modern grazing regimens. Many livestock exclosure’s that have been fenced off for many decades show the un-grazed landscapes go backwards in grass production and the resulting negative effect on the landscape.
Real Mike, you never bring anything to the argument other than your acrid personal view of things, and your total lack of what Catron County is really all about.
Dear all:
I have to agree with Mickey assertions that our ancestors made a big mistake importing domestic livestock to the West to use as the basic for the regional economy.
The problem as Mickey points out is that we imported animals not well adapted to western conditions. Cows are not very mobile. They are good with native predators. They tend to spend more time in riparian areas than native species, and to make matters worse, we confine them to fenced parcels of land and are unwilling in most cases to match their numbers to the existing forage base when there is a decline in plant productivity such as during droughts.
The total biomass of native herbivores was much greater than the biomass of domestic livestock.
Furthermore, native herbivores partition up the plant life, creating a greater total utilization of plant life without as great an impact. Smaller animals like pronghorn eat plants higher in protein while larger animals like bison can eat forage of lower quality.
Plus native animals migrated, sometimes great distances, releasing plants from herbivory pressure.
In addition native herbivores oscillated in numbers. Declining in drought and harsh winters, and subject to native predators so that on the whole, they were less likely to negatively impact large areas and reduce the overall productivity of the landscape.
Man had the greatest impact on the west and still does. When are you leaving?
Now that would make a statement about your committment to the wests ecology.
I Didn’t think so….
I can’t. The Bering Sea is now full of water. It’s a puzzle; the place was dry and passable the last time we looked; but, somehow, over the past twenty thousand years, things changed and we’re kind of stuck now. Floyd, you’re set up better, eh? I understand the cruise ships still dock at Calais right on schedule. Bye and don’t forget to write…
Many of the issues George spells out and commentors chime in upon are relate to conflicts in land use, land use managers, and jurisdictions ( not all the same ).
If only we could hold a Grand Conference out here in the West and redraw the map lines… start sorting and consolidating the various public Forest Service, BLM, USF&WS;, and State lands ( potential dynamite, those state tracts !). The checkerboarding and haphazard mosaicking of various land blocs is exasperating on its best days, a result of rather bizarre history and benign disinterest. Cases in point: when the states ended up with all unadjudicated federal lands as so-called State land, forthwith, or the arbitrary rectangular-linear boundaries of Forest or BLM land that has absolutely no correlation to topography or ecological zones.
Of course, such a Grand Conference of Western Mappers would be the biggest national brawl we’ve seen since the Civil War….