August 4, 2002

By Wes Smalling

The New Mexican

Television-news images of Northern New Mexico cattlemen holding picket signs while a federal spokesman tries to explain a decision to remove some of the livestock roaming the Santa Fe National Forest might have seemed like just another story about the impact of this year's drought.

In reality, however, it was the latest skirmish in a long, bitter war over management of the West's vast acreage of public lands.

And while the announcement that grazing-permit holders would be forced to move cattle off their federal allotments -- which some small ranchers say means selling the animals -- might have seemed like cattlemen were losing this battle, it now appears that nothing much will happen.

Most of the cows are staying put as one delay after another bogs down the unprecedented ouster, ordered more than a month ago by forest officials.

The U.S. Forest Service is caught in the crossfire between two opposing philosophies. One side views ranching on public lands as essential to preserving the vanishing traditions of the western cowboy and supporting a rural economy. The other side, spearheaded by environmental groups, views forest grazing as an ecological nightmare subsidized by federal taxpayers. Environmentalists who have called for the permanent removal of cattle from public lands at first viewed the evictions as a victory, a sign that foresters were taking seriously their claims that the land cannot support livestock grazing without wildlife habitat being degraded.

But this summer's decision by the Santa Fe National Forest is turning into a disappointment for environmentalists. The cattle industry is successfully stalling the evictions through appeals and bureaucratic channels, delays that could last until the usual end of grazing season in October.

John Horning of Forest Guardians, a group based in Santa Fe, met with attorneys on Friday to discuss potential litigation over the matter.

Some Forest Service officials who asked not to be identified acknowledge that the agency is feeling political pressure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other officials in Washington, D.C., who, in turn, are under cattle-industry pressure to leave the cows in place.

Forest Service regional director Harv Forsgren -- who oversees the management of 11 national forests in the Southwest -- denies that his agency is stalling and says the cattle removals will begin soon.

"There will be some places where livestock will have to come off early and that will be done," he said. "We just need to tell folks why, when and how. People would be mistaken if they assume this is going to be a prolonged process ... We've got a responsibility to meet the needs for people today but not to the detriment of people's needs in the future."

Other reasons than drought

Most discussion and news reports have focused on this year's drought and the lack of forage in the forest. But the dry conditions that land managers say led them to order a reduction of cattle this summer aren't the only reason for the lack of green grass, contends Horning, executive director of Forest Guardians.

"It's not because of a drought this year. It's because of 100 years of abusive grazing practices that the streams are in the poor condition they are today," Horning said Thursday as he walked along the empty streambed of the Rito Peñas Negras in the Jemez Mountains while a few cattle grazed in the distance.

The drought has put the issue of public-lands grazing in the spotlight. It "has magnified the problem," he said, "but this ecological problem hasn't developed overnight."

Jemez Mountains streams such as the Rito Peñas Negras and Rio Cebolla are just two of countless waterways hurt by cattle grazing throughout the West, he says. As Horning walked along the Rio Cebolla on Thursday he pointed to the cows chewing grass near the riverbank as proof that grazing rules really aren't enforced by district rangers. The "Cebolla Riparian Zone" of the grazing allotment along the river, he said, is only supposed to be grazed from June 3-10 and Sept. 17-30.

"Once we get out of this drought, the same old management isn't gonna cut it. The only way to bring these areas back to life is to kick the cows out for at least decades," he said. "One year's conditions haven't created this, and in the same way, one year's changes aren't going to resolve this."

The stream banks are trampled and denuded of willows and alders, trees that would provide habitat for native fish, beaver and birds such as the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, he said. Instead of deep, narrow streams curving back and forth under a protective wooded canopy, he said, the creeks are wide, shallow and exposed, which leaves the water too silty and warm to support native fish and other wildlife.

Cattle grazing has also contributed to the West's fire problems, Horning says. Combined with fire suppression and old-growth logging, cows consuming forest grasses have interfered with the natural fire regime of the ponderosa pine forest. The result is an overgrowth of spindly pine trees that are not conducive to wildlife and are prone to burning too intensely in out-of-control crown fires, instead of the once-frequent, low-intensity grass fires that cleaned out the forest of young ponderosas and other forest understory.

'This landscape has been murdered'

Ranchers say they -- not environmentalists -- are the real stewards of the land and that cows decrease fire risk and increase wildlife habitat by consuming the thick underbrush. Horning, however, says the only habitat left anymore is for cows.

"I think you can steward this landscape to the elimination of everything else but it can still support cows for the most part," he said. "But one reason I think this is reaching a climax is they're even having trouble supporting their cows."

Horning said it's hard for the public to notice the degradation because many people have never seen what the forests looked like with 500-year old trees, chest-high grass and shaded streams. "This landscape has been murdered and it's being murdered. And the difficulty is getting people to miss what they don't know."

What the public is familiar with, however, is the cowboy mystique, he says.

"I think people are far more empathetic to ranchers because of how powerful the myth is, the cowboy myth. It's a myth built on rugged individualism. ... But so much ranching in the West isn't based on that. It's federal land and subsidies. So much of the federal government props them up. Because of the power of that myth, in the public eye, ranchers are always wearing the white hats."

Most national-forest grazing allotments cost ranchers less than $1.50 per month per cow-calf pair, as opposed to about $12 on private land.

"On public lands, it's inexcusable that our streams continue to be treated as sacrifice zones," Horning says. "Why do we let such a small number of people who produce less than one-and-one-half percent of America's beef supply degrade the public lands of the West?"

Rancher says enviros have too much control

While ranchers who are fighting orders to remove their cattle might win this summer's battle, some ranchers worry they could ultimately lose the war.

In early July, Eloy Garcia, a 70-year-old rancher in Chamita, received a letter telling him to remove 40 percent of his cattle from the Chicoma allotment, an area on the Continental Divide adjacent to the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the 89,000-acre former Baca Ranch purchased two years ago by the federal government. Garcia did not comply with the order and says he hasn't bothered to check his post-office box to see if there is a second notification from the Forest Service.

The wiry, gray-haired rancher says he will appeal if the agency persists in forcing his cows off the allotment.

Garcia contends that there is plenty of grass on the upper slopes of his allotment and that the real problems are an overpopulation of elk and the fact that cows from other allotments wander onto his area. While he tries to keep a fence repaired, he said it's not really his responsibility.

"They tell me to get out when I have been here for 40 years, but they don't tell the Game and Fish department to remove the elk (which compete with cattle for grass)," Garcia said.

"If the state doesn't do anything about the elk, then why should I pull out if the feed is there?"

Elk were eliminated from New Mexico at the beginning of the 20th century but were reintroduced to the state by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. There are an estimated 70,000 to 90,000 elk in the state today.

"I cannot speak for the other allotments (but) on our allotment I don't think they're doing the right thing (ordering the cattle off)," Garcia said, adding that environmentalists have too much control over policy-making decisions on national forests.

"They're wrong," he said of environmentalists, "completely wrong. They're using (the Endangered Species Act) to ruin the country. Too much control. They've taken over. A lot of these environmentalists, they're very educated, but they don't have the experience I have with land."

A water trough and salt licks that Garcia put on his grazing allotment to keep his cattle from congregating on the streambanks also helps keep elk away from the stream, he said, adding that elk do much more damage to the land than cows.

"I know the land. I know the animals. They need the cows, the cowboys, to take care of the land."

Over the years, Garcia has watched his small community north of Española suffer as ranching and farming dwindled.

Cheap grazing allotments like the ones on the Santa Fe National Forest help to keep the centuries-old tradition alive.

"Up until 1950, almost everybody here in Chamita had cattle," he said. "Now we're three."

A gradual decline in agriculture in Northern New Mexico has led to drug problems in youths and crime which are ruining the region, he argued.

Garcia would like to pass on the ranching tradition to his grandchildren, but cattle growers like him who don't own large tracts of land depend on public-grazing allotments to stay in business. He said environmentalists want to take that away from Northern New Mexico families.

"They don't care about us. They don't care about our culture. They don't care if we're on welfare."

Garcia likens current threats to ranching to land ownership disputes stemming from the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the treaty that ended the Mexican War, which said the United States government would respect existing Spanish and Mexican land grants. Much of the disputed lands are within national forest boundaries.

"Stop denying our cultures, denying our traditions," Garcia said. "We should be respected. I'm old. I'm fortunate I still have a lot of strength. But we don't know about tomorrow."

At age 70, he wonders if he'll see the end of grazing on national forests in his lifetime. "If they throw us out, it might be 10 years (from now), might be less, but they're going to regret it," Garcia said. "They're going to come back and say what a mistake they made."

[See companion story, Forest Service Tries to Ease Tension Over Cattle Evictions.]

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