Almost a year after last summer’s devastating
droughts parched the Southwest, Navajo ranchers are warming up to
the idea of range reform.
A joint Bureau of
Indian Affairs-Navajo Nation plan may revoke some 900 grazing
permits on Navajo land. This step is the most recent in a
long-standing effort to reduce overgrazing on much of the 5
million-acre Navajo reservation. At least a million sheep, cows and
horses compete for grassless tracts, estimated to support about
half that number in the 1930s. Last May, amid starving animals,
barren land and an insufficient budget, the Navajo Nation’s Council
solicited the BIA’s help in controlling the livestock
problem.
“We’re just trying to preserve the
natural resources,” says Casey Begay, director of the Navajo
Nation’s department of agriculture. He explains that his agency has
been out on the reservation for the past two years, educating the
public about overgrazing. If people don’t cooperate, he issues
citations, then fines. He cancels permits only when the initial
tactics fail.
“Lots of people have been very
cooperative,” Begay says. The permit-cancellation plan aims to
punish those who abuse the land, he points out, and so far it has
the public’s support. “People are beginning to understand the
livestock vs. land phenomenon,” he says. “There needs to be an
equilibrium, a balance.”
* Emily
Miller
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Taking range reform by the horns.
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