In what the Forest Guardians’ John Horning calls
“evidence of an agency that’s finally getting it,” the Forest
Service has agreed to begin removing cattle from 230 miles of
Southwestern streams.
The Tucson, Ariz.-based
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity and the Santa Fe,
N.M.-based Forest Guardians filed separate lawsuits against the
Forest Service last year, charging the agency had failed to
consider the impacts of streamside cattle grazing on several
endangered species (HCN, 3/30/98).
The Forest
Service offered to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service by
July 15, but environmental groups said this wasn’t fast enough.
“This agency has never produced something on time,” says Horning.
In the agreement reached on April 16, the agency said it would
immediately begin removing cattle from 49 grazing allotments, most
in forests on the Arizona-New Mexico border.
The
agreement, designed to protect the habitat of three endangered fish
species and the southwestern willow flycatcher, an endangered
migratory songbird, was challenged by the New Mexico Cattlegrowers
Association. The group said the cost of fencing off streams and
building new water sources for cattle would drive many ranchers out
of business. A U.S. district judge rejected the challenge and
upheld the ban.
“When you begin to take away
numbers (of ranchers), you lose the infrastructure and support for
these rural economies,” says Caren Cowan, president of the New
Mexico Cattlegrowers Association. Reforms may be necessary, she
says, but “they have to be done on a case-by-case basis.”
“Nearly every one of those rivers are severely
overgrazed,” responds Horning. “If (the Forest Service) had done a
better job of taking care of the land, it would have been easier
for them to challenge our call for a grazing ban.”
*Michelle
Nijhuis
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Cows get eviction notice.
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