New Mexico State University: Difference between revisions
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<blockquote>Back in 1978, ranchers around the West felt the first tremors of grazing reform. Under legal pressure from | = Fort Stanton Range Research Station = | ||
[[Sid Goodloe]]: "The events that led up to (my relationship with [[Holistic Management]]) began while I was managing the Fort Stanton Range Research Station for NMSU... (When [[Allan Savory]]) was finally able to make it to the United States in the ‘70s... I arranged for him to visit range personnel at several land grant universities in the western U.S."<ref>https://holisticmanagement.org/featured-blog-posts/2022-nm-leopold-award-winner/</ref> | |||
= Range Improvement Task Force = | |||
<blockquote>Back in 1978, ranchers around the West felt the first tremors of grazing reform. Under legal pressure from environmentalists, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management found much of its rangeland in bad condition and recommended cutting cattle numbers on many allotments. | |||
New Mexico ranchers wanted a second opinion. They turned to the state legislature, which created the Range Improvement Task Force at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. The only one of its kind in the West, the six-member task force calls itself a group of "unbiased, professional, fact-finding advisors and educators." | New Mexico ranchers wanted a second opinion. They turned to the state legislature, which created the Range Improvement Task Force at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. The only one of its kind in the West, the six-member task force calls itself a group of "unbiased, professional, fact-finding advisors and educators." | ||
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A pro-livestock industry economist at a land-grant college outside New Mexico echoed Ohmart's concerns: "The perception (of the task force's bias) is so widespread that it creates a problem, whether the perception is true or false," said the economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.<ref>https://www.hcn.org/issues/55/1707/; "Playing politics or helping the range?," Tony Davis, March 1996</ref></blockquote> | A pro-livestock industry economist at a land-grant college outside New Mexico echoed Ohmart's concerns: "The perception (of the task force's bias) is so widespread that it creates a problem, whether the perception is true or false," said the economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.<ref>https://www.hcn.org/issues/55/1707/; "Playing politics or helping the range?," Tony Davis, March 1996</ref></blockquote> | ||
= Sources = | |||
Latest revision as of 13:00, 8 April 2023
Fort Stanton Range Research Station
Sid Goodloe: "The events that led up to (my relationship with Holistic Management) began while I was managing the Fort Stanton Range Research Station for NMSU... (When Allan Savory) was finally able to make it to the United States in the ‘70s... I arranged for him to visit range personnel at several land grant universities in the western U.S."[1]
Range Improvement Task Force
Back in 1978, ranchers around the West felt the first tremors of grazing reform. Under legal pressure from environmentalists, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management found much of its rangeland in bad condition and recommended cutting cattle numbers on many allotments.
New Mexico ranchers wanted a second opinion. They turned to the state legislature, which created the Range Improvement Task Force at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. The only one of its kind in the West, the six-member task force calls itself a group of "unbiased, professional, fact-finding advisors and educators."
Almost from the start, the task force has been accused of being a front for the livestock industry.... It's clear that the task force loathes cutting cattle numbers, and in high-profile cases it has usually sided with ranchers.
...
some task force members openly admit pro-industry leanings and connections, even as they strive for objectivity. The task force's first coordinator, Jerry Schickedanz, had his hand in the management of New Mexico's most controversial allotment, the Diamond Bar, a decade ago. He reviewed Forest Service data on the 227-square-mile allotment and concluded it could support 1,679 head of cattle - more than twice as many as the Forest Service now considers sustainable.
Earlier, in the late 1970s, Schickedanz had blasted a BLM proposal to cut cattle numbers to ease a severe erosion problem on the Rio Puerco near Albuquerque. BLM officials said the Puerco was responsible for half the sediment that flowed down the Rio Grande, even though it contributed only 8 percent of the river's water. The BLM pointed the finger at the 250,000 sheep that had grazed the area late in the last century. It planned to reduce current cattle numbers to give the land a rest.
Schickedanz joined another task force member, economist James Gray, and two other NMSU professors to testify against the cuts. They argued the reduction would devastate the ranchers' livelihoods, that the ranchers knew more about the land than the BLM and that the erosion had natural geological causes.
Schickedanz, who was raised on an Oklahoma ranch. "And I guess if I had a bias, it would be because of being raised on the land in looking after it and caring for it from a production standpoint ... as opposed to what some may term a preservation point of view."
...
But a recent blow-up over the Diamond Bar had critics charging that the task force is far from resource-oriented. Just before the first of the year, a press release by task-force range scientist Chris Allison put an optimistic spin on conditions on part of the Diamond Bar allotment (HCN, 2/5/96).
Arizona State University ecologist Bob Ohmart, a strong environmentalist, called the press release "one of the most horrible pieces of psuedoscience I've ever seen in my life" and wrote NMSU agriculture school dean John Owens that the task force should be privatized and stripped of state funding.
...
A pro-livestock industry economist at a land-grant college outside New Mexico echoed Ohmart's concerns: "The perception (of the task force's bias) is so widespread that it creates a problem, whether the perception is true or false," said the economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.[2]
Sources
- ↑ https://holisticmanagement.org/featured-blog-posts/2022-nm-leopold-award-winner/
- ↑ https://www.hcn.org/issues/55/1707/; "Playing politics or helping the range?," Tony Davis, March 1996