Today, WWP’s Arizona office and our attorney at Advocates for the West filed a lawsuit against ongoing grazing on the Sonoran Desert National Monument. The monument was designated to protect unique vegetation, desert wildlife, gorgeous scenery, and irreplaceable historic and cultural resources- all resources harmed by grazing. The Proclamation closed about half the monument allotments on the monument to grazing already, and it also stated that grazing should only continue on the other half if it can be determined to be compatible with protecting the monument objects.

The BLM didn’t need WWP to tell them that grazing is bad news for the monument because the agency already knows this. It has commissioned two studies that analyze the viability of livestock management on the monument, one of which reached the conclusion, “There is no known system of grazing that would be compatible with resource protection.” Sounds pretty clear, doesn’t it?

However, the BLM has been turning a deaf ear to conservationists’ pleas and the science, and the agency has even gone so far as to renew permits without having made a compatibility determination and without completing a NEPA review. You read that right: The BLM has renewed permits despite Proclamation language urging the agency to use utmost care in allowing grazing to continue, and it has done so without even an EA.

The BLM asserts that it is going to make the compatibility determination and permit adjustments in the forthcoming Resource Management Plan. We think that incompatibility has already been determined and that the agency should get the cows off now. We hope that the Court will agree.

Read more about the Sonoran Desert National Monument on our webpage.