This spring, Wilderness Watch was alarmed to learn that the Forest Service recently and quietly allowed a long-vacant grazing allotment in the Superstition Wilderness in Arizona to once again be grazed by domestic cattle. This Wilderness lies mostly within the Sonoran Desert, with semidesert grassland and chaparral in its higher elevations. Not only will this fragile desert Wilderness once again be harmed by cattle grazing, but there appears to have been no public notice or opportunity to comment on the reopening of this grazing allotment known as the Reavis-Tortilla.
This past June, Wilderness Watch and Western Watersheds Project sent a letter to the supervisor of the Tonto National Forest to express our serious concerns and to request more information on this grazing allotment, including: when cattle were allowed back on the allotment; the number of cattle; official documentation on the grazing permit and the decision to resume grazing; when the allotment was last assessed for past damage; and whether a public process has or will be conducted.
The agency should have conducted a site-specific National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis since cattle have not grazed this allotment for decades, and reauthorizing grazing requires the agency to analyze potential impacts to the Wilderness. Such analysis should account for the ecological recovery over the years since cattle last grazed and should provide a current ecological baseline. If the Forest Service believes a NEPA review and/or a public process isn’t required, it must explain why.
Our letter also expressed concern that the agency may be allowing private ranchers to use helicopters or other motorized equipment within the Wilderness to manage the cattle.
Reintroducing cattle into areas not grazed in a long time within the Superstition Wilderness will likely cause negative impacts to soil and water quality, riparian function, and native plant and wildlife populations that depend on intact desert ecosystems. These impacts should have been rigorously analyzed and publicly vetted before grazing was reintroduced into this part of the Superstition Wilderness—or any Wilderness, for that matter.
We’re awaiting a response from the Forest Service.
Photo: Deborah Lee Soltesz
