CEDAR CITY — Hugh Thompson knew his draft proposal to allow the transfer of federal grazing permits for uses other than grazing would raise a few eyebrows — and maybe even a few voices — once he shared his idea.

"This issue is starting to boil over," Thompson, deputy director of the state Department of Natural Resources, said at the Utah Rural Summit in Cedar City last week. "I come from the ranching side of the fence on this. My plan is simple and common sense. I don't think it's overloaded on one side or the other."

Thompson was one of four people invited to discuss the "lightning-rod topic" of grazing buyouts as part of the two-day rural summit held on the Southern Utah University campus. The topic was expected to be so volatile that two breakout sessions on the topic were scheduled in one day.

Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw and Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, both ranchers, and Bill Hedden, executive director of the Grand Canyon Trust, rounded out the list of presenters who faced a roomful of people holding a stake in the future of grazing allotments.

"We believe that in some areas of the arid southwest, cattle shouldn't be there," said Hedden, who has a doctorate in biology and has helped broker buyouts of grazing permits on public lands in Utah and Arizona. Ranchers who want to sell are getting top dollar from groups like the Grand Canyon Trust, far more than the government would pay.

"In a few carefully selected cases, we would like to remove cows (from the permitted area). We have no intention of running anyone off his or her land. It's really hard to substantiate the allegation that we're putting the screws to ranchers so they fold," Hedden said.

Noel and Habbeshaw said the Grand Canyon Trust and other special interest groups have a private agenda markedly different from the one Hedden described.

"Their emphasis is to eliminate grazing on every square mile of public land in the western United States. That is their agenda," Noel said, adding that grazing allotments are lost forever once they're sold to such groups. "There is no meeting their appetite for buying out grazing allotments. They see what they want and they take it. What does that do to the rural economy? I submit to you that it destroys it."

Taking care of the needs of livestock is the plan's first priority, said Thompson. And none of the options carves out new policy or infringes on federal land management law.

"If public lands can be grazed, they must be grazed," he said, adding his plan allows transferring or retiring a grazing permit only if the range is unfit for grazing livestock. Even then, any use proposed for the land, such as adding wildlife or setting land aside for conservation or recreation, must fit within the affected county's land use plan.

The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service issue federal grazing allotments and permits. The federal agencies have different mandates, which means land management decisions between the two agencies can sometimes conflict, Thompson said.

View Comments

"I'm looking for consistency here. I'm looking for a vehicle to make the federal and state agencies do what they're supposed to do in the first place," he said. "There is no uniform approach. We need to put people on the same page before decisions are made."

But Habbeshaw said he thought Thompson's plan did little to improve the already poor relations that exist between ranchers, hunters and environmentalists.

"These buyouts or retirements are a way of mothballing our grazing allotments," said Habbeshaw. "It's a way of sidestepping current grazing regulations. Using grazing permits for conservation use is illegal and that's the standard we go by. It comes down to whether or not you want special interest groups to have a significant impact on public policies."


E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.