Southwest Stockmen Fighting
Back With Lawsuit On Grazing

PHOENIX —(AP)— Arizona cattlemen are trying to stop the U.S. Forest Service from enforcing new grazing regulations.

In a lawsuit filed last Thursday, the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association contends that the new regulations were imposed improperly and could hurt the ranching industry in Arizona and New Mexico.

The grazing regulations, proposed by Regional Forester Charles Cartwright in June 1996, would limit the amount of land set aside for grazing. The new rules would cut grazing on about half the 1365 grazing allotments in 11 Arizona and New Mexico forests.

The suit asks the U.S. District Court to stop the Forest Service from carrying out the regulations, saying that Cartwright and Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck adopted the regulations without adequate public debate.

"These are pretty severe restrictions on grazing," said Norman James, attorney for the Phoenix-based cattle growers association.

James said if the regulations are enforced, many ranchers would have to find other lands to lease, probably at much higher costs. Also, some ranchers unable to find suitable land would be forced to sell off their cattle at below-market prices, he said.

About 125,000 cattle graze Arizona forests and roughly 92,000 in New Mexico's.

Forest Service spokeswoman Joyce Hassle said her office could not comment on the lawsuit because the agency has yet to review it.

However, Hassle said the agency has not started enforcing the regulations and hasn't set a date for doing so.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled last month that Forest Service must start enforcing the grazing regulations.

The Forest Service had sought to warn the court that its decision could cause removal of livestock "with far-reaching negative economic impacts to families, communities and counties."

In New Mexico, protests over the issue bely the activists’ portrayal of stockmen as rich, greedy land barons.

At Hernandez, N.M., about 40 ranchers protesting the activists’ suit say they would resist any effort by the Forest Service to remove cattle from their public land grazing allotments.

"You would see a confrontation, a fight. We would stock our cattle regardless," said David Sanchez of La Herencia de Nortenos Unidos, a grassroots organization made up largely of Hispanic ranchers and loggers.

Longtime rancher Manuel Rudy Pacheco accused environmentalists of waging war on rural people in northern New Mexico, where ranching stretches back hundreds of years.

"They kicked us. We'll kick them back," Pacheco said. "They're trying to break our culture."

John Horning of Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians, who is among plaintiffs in the lawsuit, responded: "We believe you cannot hide behind culture, tradition and race. Land abuse is land abuse regardless of your ethnic background."

The ranchers' protest followed an injunction issued by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last month.

The injunction, stemming from a lawsuit filed by Forest Guardians and the Tucson-based Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, could force removal of hundreds of cattle from national forest grazing allotments in New Mexico and Arizona.

Environmentalists have said they will initially push for the removal or reduction of cattle on 150 to 200 grazing allotments, or about 15 percent of the total allotments on the 11 national forests in the two states.

Most of those allotments are located in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.

Only about 10 to 15 of the allotments the environmentalists are targeting are located on the Santa Fe and Carson national forests of northern New Mexico.

While that might suggest ranchers in northern New Mexico may not be as hard-hit as ranchers elsewhere, cattlemen at a recent meeting in Hernandez, northwest of Espanola, said it's only a ploy to mask environmentalists' real goal of removing cattle from all public lands.