-USFS Tags Diamond Bar as Green Showplace,” headlined
the pro-ranching Hatch, N.M., Courier, after the Forest Service
evaluated the 227-square-mile Diamond Bar grazing allotment near
Silver City (HCN, 5/1/95). The agency cut ranchers Kit and Sherry
Laney’s permitted cattle numbers from 1,188 to 300, but the
ranchers will be able to up that to 600-800 after they spend
$129,000 to build 15 miles of new fence and dig 15 earthen stock
ponds, among other developments. All measures are meant to keep
cattle out of sensitive riparian areas in the Gila and Aldo Leopold
wilderness areas. Silver City’s Gila Watch, however, blasted the
stock-tank plan as the most “aggressive wilderness development”
since passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act. Director Susan Schock
contended the decision is only a “paper cut” because the Laneys
have averaged only 600-800 cows in recent years. Forest Service
officials admit its decision will change nothing on the Diamond Bar
until both sides finish their appeals and lawsuits, some three
years off. Ranchers and environmentalists view the case as a
national bellwether for the future of wilderness ranching.
Meanwhile, says John Twiss, the Forest Service’s wilderness chief
in Washington, D.C., “neither side gets the whole enchilada.”
*Tony Davis
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Back at the Diamond Bar….
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