| Grazing foes win key case
(Note: "Forest Guardians has won similar cases before, but this one sets a precedent since the judge ordered cattle off public lands..." Federal Judge David Bury is a vegan, perhaps? Or maybe he likes the taste of Brazilian beef better than the healthier beef grown in America? 'Featured actions' sound ominously like ELF and ALF 'actions,' also known as domestic terrorism in the form of bombings and arson. This 'rural cleansing' of America's resource providers -- read: FOOD GROWERS -- is also domestic terrorism, and here we have it being condoned by a 'judge.' Note from BH: Here's the link to the court s decision with an amendment that contains the affected allotments: http://www.fguardians.org/ Go to the right hand margin, to "featured actions" and the photo of the owl. FG's press release and a copy of the court ruling are there.) November 5, 2003 By Mitch Tobin, Arizona Daily Star mtobin@azstarnet.com or 520-573-4185 To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@azstarnet.com (600-word limit) A federal judge has kicked 1,425 cows off 140,000 acres of national forest in Arizona and New Mexico in response to a lawsuit filed by environmentalists. U.S. District Judge David Bury canceled seven grazing permits, four of them in the Coronado National Forest near Tucson. The other permits are in New Mexico's Cibola National Forest and Arizona's Tonto and Coconino national forests. Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians successfully argued that the Forest Service hadn't done enough to gauge the impact of grazing on endangered species, in particular the Mexican spotted owl, lesser long-nosed bat and two fish -- the spikedace and loach minnow. Harold Lackner, 70, a lifelong rancher whose family has three of the four canceled leases in the Coronado, wasn't aware of the ruling until contacted by a reporter Tuesday. "I'll lose what I've got invested in them," said Lackner, who estimated he has spent $30,000 in improvements on just one of the grazing allotments, near Fort Grant. Arizona's livestock industry has already been devastated by the drought, so more hardships may limit ranching "to rich people who buy a ranch just to have a ranch," he said. "I try to make a living at it, but it's getting to the point where I can't do it," he said. Forest Guardians has won similar cases before, but this one sets a precedent since the judge ordered cattle off public lands, said Laurele Fulkerson, an attorney for the group. "Usually we win on the merits, but nothing is done on the ground," she said. "This ruling is critical because it will give these important landscapes time to heal from harm caused by cattle grazing." The Forest Service, citing a 1995 federal spending act, said it only had to look at the effects of grazing over three years. But in his October 30 ruling, Bury said the agency must study the impact of livestock over the full 10 years of the permit. Doc Lane, director of natural resources for the Arizona Cattle Growers Association, called Forest Guardians' repeated lawsuits "an abuse of the system." "They want to get rid of livestock grazing in the West because they don't happen to like it," he said. "It costs them nothing, but it costs us everything." |