Grazing is needed for the maintenance of a grassland system. Hill notes that altering the well-documented relationship between producer and consumer (grass and herbivore) seems unwise. Removing herbivores from public lands may adversely change the destiny of the grasslands. Grazing may be, if correctly used, the best management tool to simulate historic conditions and maintain biological diversity in grassland systems. Hill stresses that there is a need to reevaluate the policies governing grazing on practice and public land. Attempts to enhance and should be rewarded, rather than penalized. Establishing strict grazing regulations may be excessive and un-reasonable on an ever-changing, multi-purpose land base. The trend to set inflexible stocking-rate policies based on past overgrazing should be replaced by a system that determines stocking rates based on the current site-specific conditions. Examination and restructuring of our agricultural tax exemption policy and federal cost-share programs also may be necessary to encourage proper land stewardship on small fragmented parcels on land. Obsolete federal policies that penalize landowners for cutting back on livestock numbers should be removed. According to Hill, the destiny of our grasslands may be at the hands of the people. Policy makers should not evaluate the merits of grazing based on overgrazing. Soon, grazing restrictions and regulations will be voted on by private citizens.
Citations and enhanced abstracts for journals articles and documents focused on rangeland ecology and management. RSIS is a collaboration between Montana State University, University of Idaho, and University of Wyoming.