Wilderness Watch is supporting Alternative C, the No Grazing Alternative, in The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Sonoran Desert National Monument Livestock Grazing Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment/Environmental Assessment. This covers 252,460 acres of federal public land in Arizona, with the national monument land north of Interstate 8 including 63,600 acres of the North Maricopa Mountains Wilderness and 60,800 acres of the South Maricopa Mountains Wilderness.
The two Wilderness areas are home to desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, coyotes, bobcats, foxes, deer, Gambel’s quails, and other wildlife. Their two major vegetation communities are palo verde-mixed cacti, which includes dense “forests” of saguaro cactus, palo verde, and ironwood trees, and the creosote-bursage community that covers low elevation valley floors in seemingly unbroken expanses.
Portions of the Beloat, Big Horn, Hazen, and Conley livestock grazing allotments are within the North Maricopa Mountains Wilderness, and portions of the Big Horn, Conley, and Lower Vekol allotments are within the South Maricopa Mountains Wilderness.
When the Sonoran Desert National Monument was designated by Presidential Proclamation in 2001, grazing permits south of Interstate 8 were not to be renewed at the end of their term, and grazing on land north of Interstate 8 would be allowed to continue only if compatible with protecting the national monument.
The BLM admits that the north part of the national monument is marginal for livestock grazing, but still proposes livestock grazing across the entire area, including within the North and South Maricopa Mountains Wildernesses.
The agency’s own data reflect that areas near water are generally overgrazed, and the agency also maintains that cattle don’t graze far from water. In a catch-22, the BLM is willing to sacrifice areas near water where cattle do graze, because areas far from water that are likely to be free of grazing are in in good condition. The BLM’s data shows, in essence, that grazing is incompatible with the national monument objectives because the places near water have been harmed by cattle.
The agency also claims that impacts from cattle grazing would be negative but negligible in Wilderness, largely because the BLM expects cattle to congregate near water, concentrating damage there rather than deep with Wilderness. However, allowing sensitive areas near water to become sacrifice areas directly conflicts with the national monument’s proclamation, harms wildlife that need these desert waters, and degrades the area’s wild character.
The BLM needs to select Alternative C, the No Grazing Alternative, which would end damaging livestock grazing in both Wildernesses.
Read our protest of the proposed decision
Read our EA comments
Read our scoping comments
Read our group scoping comment letter
Photo: Sonoran Desert National Monument by Bob Wick/BLM
