Grazing policy with Mary O'Brien

This entry is part of my journal from Semester in the West. For all SITW journal entries, click here. For all SITW posts, including blog posts I wrote while on the program, click here. To learn more about the program, click here.

camp: Escalante, Utah

context: During this week, we were working with Mary O’Brien, an ecologist with the Grand Canyon Trust. Mary was one of several ecologists we met who believed that cattle grazing on Western public lands was an environmental nightmare and is working to reduce the amount of land that’s grazed.

Once again, we talk about grazing. It’s crazy how we get so invested and involved in these problems that it’s hard to see scale. We’re busy discussing ways to make public lands ranching sustainable and public lands only produce 2 or 3% of American beef. I find this issue more interesting than almost anything else except water rights because it involves so many issues—ecology, politics, economics, cultural myths, American history, land management…it seems like one giant puzzle. Mary asked why we’re willing to ask so many questions about how to preserve grazing but not about how to preserve sage grouse or riparian habitat. Partly, I think it’s that intersection—not just ecology, but so many things to think about. Though that’s true of habitats too; it’s not just science, there’s advocacy and politics and legal precedent that all get mixed in. So why do we care about ranchers? Anthropocentrism—I feel more for hardworking American left jobless than a sage grouse who can’t find enough to eat. Partly, I don’t think I have a sense of urgency—unlike climate change or water shortages, I don’t see much in the way of serious consequences on a larger scale. I don’t live here, but I do have to live with the laws passed by the Republicans ranchers vote for because they think my camp is anti-ranching. That’s a very selfish and probably incomplete analysis, but I’d be willing to bet it’s not entirely wrong.