Eco-Activists, Stockmen Groups
To Meet Again, Discuss Issues

By David Bowser

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Negotiations between cattlemen and environmental activists are expected to begin again after the holidays, but the head of one of the groups involved in the negotiations is pessimistic as to any positive results.

Jeff Menges, chairman of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association's Federal Lands Committee, told a joint stockmen's meeting here late in the year that negotiations between the national leadership of cattlemen's groups and some of the national organizations of the environmental community had broken down in the fall.

"The last meeting we had was just prior to the NCBA meeting in Reno," Menges said. "Things just kind of blew up at that point. The environmentalists asked for some things that we thought were unreasonable. We basically drew a line and said we can't agree to anything like that. If they want to back off of that and come back to the table, then we'll be glad to talk to them."

The sticking point was a bidding process on certain grazing permits that were in bad condition. The environmental activists wanted the bidding process, and the stockmen's groups wouldn't agree.

"They thought about it for a while, then they just got in touch the other day and said that they would back off from the demand," Menges continued. "They said the two most important issues to them that we were talking about were monitoring and enforcement. They said they would like to sit down one more time and talk about those issues."

Menges expects the stockmen's group to make some sort of proposal that would assure relief from the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and associated rules and regulations.

"That's what I expect the focus of the next meeting to be," Menges said.

He also expects it to be the last meeting.

If an agreement is reached, he said, it would be only between those involved and would still have to be ratified by the membership of their organizations.

"At that point, we would come back to our respective groups with that proposal on the table and see if they were interested in pursuing it from there," Menges explained.

Then they would go to Congress to codify such an agreement with legislation.

"But we've got to get the approval of our groups before we go anywhere, and at this point, I think it's pretty unlikely that we will go anywhere," Menges opined.

What the negotiators discussed over the past year is an outcome-based agreement which would give ranchers greater flexibility.

"They would be able to set their numbers," Menges said. "They'd be able to determine their own management."

But there would be a requirement that the ranchers meet certain environmental objectives.

"That's the crux of it," Menges said.

He termed the negotiations "tough," but said he thinks that is predictable.

"We're going to meet with them one more time," he said. "That will probably be in January."

The Arizona rancher noted that in his state, activist groups, primarily the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity and the Forest Guardians, have seven suits pending, most of them in connection with the Endangered Species Act. In the last three years, those groups in Arizona have filed more than 60 suits in federal courts, he said.

Menges said it appears to him that the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity and the Forest Guardians have settled in the Southwest, particularly in Arizona and New Mexico, and have targeted the two states as the area where they want to try to get cattle off public lands.

"We're simply going to have to rise to the occasion," Menges said. "We certainly have our work cut out for us there. I personally have one allotment that's affected by one of the BLM suits."