USA: Out west… death of fragile land & after logging is the worst of all: Ranching
Ranchers are the most pervasively destructive force on our public
land, with logging as a distant second. Some 90% of all Bureau of Land
Management lands, 70% of Forest Service lands, dozens of national
parks, wildlife refuges, state land and even county land are affected
by livestock production. It is the No. 1 source of water pollution in
the West. It’s the No. 1 source of soil erosion in the West. It’s the
No. 1 cause of species endangerment in the West. It’s the reason we
don’t have wolves throughout the West. It’s one of the major reasons
that more than four-fifths of all native fish west of the Continental
Divide are endangered or threatened.”
Via outlandish subsidies, you, I
and Uncle Sam support the cattle industry with drought and fire
relief, fencing, water tanks, windmills and bargain-basement grazing
fees. Our government kills hundreds of thousands of wild creatures
each year to protect ranchers’ herds against pre dators such as
wolves, mountain lions and coyotes. In return we get erosion,
endangered species, habitat destruction, flash floods, exotic weeds,
desertification and some of the most degraded landscape on Earth. Much
of it will never recover. Wuerthner points out that when the effects
of farming are factored in-bearing in mind that most of the
agricultural land in the U.S. is used to grow crops to feed
livestock-livestock production is responsible for more endangered
species than any other human activity, including urbanization.
Wuerthner says I was not inherently hostile to livestock production or
ranching,” he says. “But as I looked more and more at the ultimate
causes of many Western environmental issues, I kept coming back to one
industry-the livestock industry. I came to conclude that the
cumulative environmental effects of this industry easily outstrip all
others, hence my conversion to a grazing activist.” Public lands play
a crucial role in this country’s biodiversity crisis too. Fortunately,
Wuerthner believes the Western livestock industry is dying out,
largely because of rising land prices. Today’s prices make it
impossible to buy land and pay it off by running cattle, which
prevents young people from entering the business unless they have
outside money, so old ranchers are not being replaced when they
retire. Also, it is more difficult to pass on a ranch to family
members, since even small ranches are now worth millions. This leaves
ranching families with little choice but to sell, he says, which in
some places will mean subdividing the land and in others means selling
to a wealthy buyer who will run the ranch as a ‘trophy’ or hobby.
“That is not altogether a bad fate, since it keeps the land intact,”
Wuerthner says, “but if you are rich, you don’t need to run cows.”
http://www.earthsave.org/news/03summer/cowboy_myth.htm