🚀 go-pugleaf

 
  Funny how the Republicans and dittoheads have decided that 
  welfare for the rich is ok, but not for poor mothers.   
  Examples are Welfare Cowboys, Welfare Loggers, Welfare Farmers,
  and Welfare Miners.

  In each case they have fought Clinton's plans to roll back
  taxpayer funded subsidies.  I guess that contrary to what 
  Limbaaah says, the Republican Party really is the Party for 
  the rich.  Can any other conclusion be reached?

  Why else would the Republicans be gutting scientific research
  into the facts of environmental degradation.  Such as defunding
  the National Biological Survey?  Could it be that they do not
  want scientific facts getting in the way of the Rich Boys who
  care little for America the Beautiful?  What other reason could
  there be?   Why this fear of science?

  It is believed that the environmental degradation caused by
  the 3% of cattlemen who are Welfare Cowboys grazing on Public
  Land causes more damage than all the clearcutting combined.

  This degradation is not appreciated by the the public when they
  see it because they do NOT see it.  Why?  The degraded state
  is what we have been born into, that is what we assume is the
  natural state.  Multi generational environmental degradation
  is rarely noticed.  Does that mean it is ok?   I suppose that 
  some could argue that it is.
  --Doug Bashford


   Yep, Jay Hanson wrote on 02 Aug 95  10:17:16 
    about:   Re: more Welfare Cowboys? (eco):
Crossposted:

 I found this in my files and thought some
 of you might be interested:

 ---------------------------------------------------

 SOCIETY FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY POSITION STATEMENT:

 LIVESTOCK GRAZING ON PUBLIC LANDS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 Extent of Livestock Grazing in the Region

 Grazing by domestic livestock is the most ubiquitous land
 management practice in the western United States.
 Approximately seventy percent of the eleven western states
 are currently grazed, including virtually all western
 ecosystem types-subalpine meadows, forests, grasslands,
 deserts, woodlands, and chaparral and other shrublands.
 All types of public lands are grazed, including national
 forests, lands managed by the Bureau of Land
 Management, wildlife refuges, military installations,
 wilderness areas, even national parks and monuments, as
 well as a variety of state, regional, and county lands.  This
 represents a dramatic ecological change because most
 western ecosystems supported few, if any, large grazing
 mammals before Euro-American settlement.  Those large
 mammals that did exist previously, such as bison and
 pronghorn, had very different food habits, behavior, and
 ecological effects.

 Ecological causes for concern

 Most rangelands are currently in deteriorated ecological
 conditions.  Past grazing practices have had detrimental
 effects on the composition, function, and structure of native
 ecosystems.

 Livestock grazing has led to a decrease in native species
 richness in a broad array of ecosystem types.  Additionally,
 a wide variety of taxa has experienced a decrease in
 population densities under grazing pressure.  In addition to
 the more conspicuous megafauna and flora, microbiotic
 taxa, such as mycorrhizae which are essential for higher
 plants, have been affected.  Of particular concern are rare
 taxa, which can be put at high risk by livestock.  Other
 causes for concern about the ecological influence of
 livestock grazing include increases in alien species,
 alteration of animal foraging guilds, control of native
 predators and grassland species for economic gains, and
 increases in livestock-borne diseases among native wildlife
 species such as bighorn sheep.

 Livestock grazing also affects several ecosystem functions,
 such as nutrient and hydrologic cycling, and succession.
 The cycling of nitrogen, the most important limiting nutrient
 in arid and semiarid ecosystem, is disrupted through
 trampling damage to microbiotic soil crusts.  Western
 ecosystems also lose nutrients because they are tied up in
 livestock feces, which in some cases cannot be recycled
 due to lack of appropriate decomposers (for example, dung
 beetles in the Great Basin).  When livestock are exported to
 markets, nutrients are lost from western ecosystems on a
 massive scale.  Livestock interfere with ecological
 succession, especially in riparian communities.  The quality
 and availability of water is also diminished by the presence
 of livestock.  Overall, these activities lead to increased
 evapotranspiration rates and desertification.

 Physical structure of livestock-influenced ecosystems is also
 altered.  In many cases, vegetation strata are lost because
 plant regeneration is disrupted by foraging and trampling by
 livestock.  The activity of livestock removes residual ground
 cover and soil litter, and compacts soil, leading to
 decreased water infiltration, and thus increased water runoff
 and soil erosion.  The net effect of such interactions is a loss
 of available water to biotic communities.

 Livestock, especially cattle, spend a disproportionate
 amount of time in riparian habitats.  Thus, these sites, which
 are among the biologically richest in the region, are easily
 damaged.  Because these communities provide essential
 habitat for a wide variety of species, this can have severe
 effects on regional biotas.

 In sum, livestock grazing, which occurs throughout a
 majority of the American West, has a host of negative
 ecological repercussions.  Livestock grazing has reduced
 densities and biomass of many plant and animal species,
 reduced biodiversity, aided the spread of exotic species,
 interrupted ecological succession, impeded the cycling of
 the most important limiting nutrient, changed habitat
 structure, disturbed community organization, and has been
 one of the most severe impacts on one of the biologically
 richest habitats in the region.  While undoubtedly there are
 exceptions to this theme of destruction, clearly much of the
 ecological integrity of a variety of North American habitats is
 at risk from this land management practice.

 A Call for Action

 The ecological evidence is clear that livestock grazing must
 be drastically reduced in the American West.  We urge the
 public land management agencies to undertake the
 following for lands and resources under their jurisdiction:

 1.  Evaluate the ecological costs and appropriateness of
 livestock grazing on an ecosystem by ecosystem basis.

 The public agencies must analyze the ecological dynamics
 of each ecosystem type to determine whether, and to what
 extent, livestock grazing has an ecologically justifiable role.
 The "litmus test" should be the following: Can livestock
 grazing be done in such a manner that it helps maintain or
 improve the health, biological diversity, and long-term
 productivity of this ecosystem?  Livestock grazing on public
 rangelands is not justifiable unless the answer is a clear
 and substantiated "yes."

 2.  Remove livestock immediately from damaged areas,
 except where it can be shown that grazing provides benefits
 (as described in #3 below).

 The land management agencies should act immediately to
 remove livestock grazing from sites that fit the U.S. Bureau
 of Land Management definitions of "good" with "stable or
 declining trends," or worse, rangeland conditions.  Riparian
 areas are of special concern due to their great biological
 significance.

 3.  Allow livestock grazing only where, and in such a
 manner, that it serves positive ecological roles.

 With a view to the longer term, the public land management
 agencies should initiate steps to phase out livestock grazing
 from those ecosystem types where the practice does not
 pass the "litmus test" for ecological justification (see #1
 above), for example, in desertscrub and desert grassland
 ecosystems.  For those ecosystem types where livestock
 grazing does have potentially beneficial ecological roles
 (for example, achieving and sustaining diversity of
 vegetation types or successional stages at the landscape
 scale), the agencies should bring grazing under
 management that ensures its positive contribution to the
 health, biological diversity, and long-term productivity of
 those systems.

 4.  Help society make informed choices.

 Honestly articulate the ecological costs and consequences
 of livestock grazing, as well as the beneficial roles grazing
 can serve if carefully managed in certain ecological
 settings.  Make scientific information understandable and
 accessible, so that society can make informed choices
 about public lands and resources.

 5.  Establish a network of significant areas where livestock
 are excluded, to serve as benchmarks for scientific
 evaluation of the ecological effects of grazing.

 These benchmark areas should be established in all major
 ecosystem types of the American West, and should be large
 enough to evaluate landscape-level processes.

 6.  Eliminate grazing on public lands where it is
 accompanied by widespread control of native predators.

 Society for Conservation Biology,
 Public Lands Grazing Committee:
 Thomas L. Fleischner, Chair
 David E. Brown
 Allen Y. Cooperrider
 Winifred B. Kessler
 Elizabeth L. Painter

 Approved by the Board of Governors of the Society for
 Conservation Biology, 11 June 1994

 This position statement was developed in conjunction with a
 lengthier review article which includes extensive supporting
 literature citations.  See Fleischner, T.L.  1994.  Ecological
 costs of livestock grazing in western North America.
 Conservation Biology 8(3):629-644.




... --------  From Dead Central California  ----------