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This requirement allows ranchers to get directly involved in the NEPA process in a number of different ways and at different times. The outcomes of the NEPA process for a term grazing permit renewal will affect the management of your allotment for at least 10 years. You should always make use of the opportunity to get involved in the NEPA process to ensure your interests are recognized. Agencies are required to read and respond to your comments, so they will not be ignored. Points when you can engage and how:

1. Scoping: at the beginning of an EA or EIS process, the US Forest Service will always, and the BLM will usually, have a scoping period. During this time, the public can submit comments to the agency about what the EA or EIS should include and review. This  stage is an opportunity to make sure that the EA or EIS covers all of your concerns and includes all of the data that you think are important to making a fair decision. As a result of participating in scoping, you may even be able to submit your own proposed management alternative if you do not think the agency’s proposed management plan fits your interests.
2. Informal participation: While ranchers are not a part of the team preparing an EA or and EIS, you should try to stay as informed and involved in the process as possible throughout the development of the proposed management action. Relationships with agency staff and range specialists are important. When you have a good relationship, it is easier to maintain good communication throughout the NEPA process.
3. Formal public comments: During the NEPA process, agencies are required to seek public comment. For EAs, this happens after the EA is written, but before a decision. For EISs, there are comment periods after the draft EIS is written and before a decision is made on the final EIS. You should participate in these comment periods by submitting formal comments to the US Forest Service or BLM about the contents of the EA and EIS. Your comments can be positive or negative. As much as you can, you should support your comments with data from monitoring, your management records, past Annual Operating Instructions, Cooperative Extension reports, and published reports and scientific data. 

The purpose of the NEPA process is to understand and evaluate the environmental impacts of activities carried out by the federal government. To complete the NEPA process, agencies need data to evaluate environmental impacts. Ranchers can do three things to help agencies conduct NEPA evaluations:

1. Establish good relationships with local agency personnel involved in the management of grazing allotments. The NEPA process should not be adversarial. A strong, trusting relationship between ranchers and agency staff can help the process run smoothly and ensure both the agency and permittees understand one another’s views and needs. Ranchers should look to establish these relationships before the start of a NEPA process.
2. Keep accurate records on your management. Your records can help with development of existing conditions information about your allotment. The US Forest Service or BLM will have its own records, but if you maintain accurate annual records of Annual Operating Instructions, livestock numbers, range improvements, management changes over time, etc., your records can help to fill in gaps in agency records.
3. Conduct annual monitoring. Monitoring should be carried out regularly by the US Forest Service and BLM. Participating in this monitoring is a great way to build strong working relationships with agency personnel. If the federal agencies are not conducting regular monitoring on your allotments, ask them to start. You can also conduct monitoring yourself. While monitoring takes time, it has multiple benefits. You will understand the impacts of your management better and the data can help provide an accurate picture of your allotment for NEPA.

Unlike many federal laws, NEPA is specifically designed to incorporate public participation at every step in the process. This means as a US Forest Service or BLM permittee, you can and should get involved in the NEPA process as soon as you become aware that a NEPA review is happening on your allotment. How do you know when NEPA is happening? There are two common situations when NEPA is carried out on grazing allotments:

1. When your term grazing permit is up for renewal. NEPA is typically carried out as a part of the renewal process.
2. When a range improvement project is happening on your allotment, but only if this range improvement is not included in the Allotment Management Plan that was written at the time of your last term grazing permit renewal.

If either of these things are happening on your allotment, you should contact the agency office that manages your grazing permit and ask about NEPA. If NEPA is happening or planned for your allotment, you should tell you range conservationist or another agency representative that you want to be involved. As a permittee, you should be able to comment and offer input on the purpose and need for the project, existing conditions on the allotment, and the specifics of the proposed action.

You should also not wait for a NEPA process to start developing good working relationships with agency personnel. Building trust takes time. Using opportunities outside the NEPA process to engage with and build relationships with agency personnel, for example through Annual Operating Instructions meetings and annual range monitoring, can go a long way to making the NEPA process run smoothly.

Because NEPA is a regulatory process, the US Forest Service and BLM must follow standard procedures in developing NEPA documents. Understanding these procedures will help you know what to expect throughout the NEPA process. All NEPA documents will contain the following elements:

1. Purpose and Need for Action: This is the first section of a NEPA document. It provides basic information on why a NEPA document is being prepared, e.g. to analyze the issuance of a term grazing permit.

2. Existing conditions: A review of the basic characteristics of the grazing allotment, past management, grazing history, and monitoring documentation. Annual Operating Instructions and monitoring data are important for documenting existing conditions. These documents and other data are used to identify resource management concerns, if any. Existing conditions are the context for future management. The existing conditions section may include:

- A description of the grazing allotment

- Important historical information about an allotment such as historical overgrazing or other resource management concerns that current and future management must address

- Past management actions and their success

- Factors that have influenced the success or failure of past management

- Summary of past monitoring data

3. Proposed Action: Typically, grazing permit renewals and range improvement projects require only an Environmental Assessment, or EA, a more limited form of analysis. An EA requires documentation of only the proposed action. If a more extensive Environmental Impacts Statement, or EIS, is needed, multiple alternative actions will be described. In Arizona, proposed actions will typically include provisions for Adaptive Management, an approach that allows for adjustment over time to address emerging challenges.

4. Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action: An analysis of the likely environmental effects of issuance of a grazing permit or implementation of a range improvement. If the analysis in an EA determines that there are likely significant impacts, then an EIS must be prepared.

5. Supporting Documents and Compliance Information: Scientific studies cited in the analysis, monitoring data, endangered species compliance, archeology compliance, etc.

Typically, the US Forest Service or the BLM will conduct an Environmental Analysis, or EA for range improvement projects or issuance of term grazing permits. An EA is required by NEPA, or the National Environmental Policy Act. Its purpose is to provide a brief analysis of the environmental, economic, and social impacts of a federal action. A federal action is any decision, permit, or activity carried out by a federal agency. The purpose of an EA is to determine if a federal action has a “significant impact” and, if the action does have a significant impact, if it is possible to easily prevent or compensate for these impacts. Because grazing permits and most range improvements generally seen as having minor impacts, the NEPA process generally ends with completion of the EA. Once the EA is complete, the US Forest or BLM may issue the permit or carry out the proposed project.

In relatively rare cases, the EA will result in a finding that there are significant impacts. Examples for this may include a major change in a livestock operation in terms of numbers or type of livestock or large, complex range improvement projects such as large-scale brush removal or prescribed fire. In these cases, the NEPA process will continue to the more complex EIS stage. An EIS is similar to an EA, but much more detailed and complex. A typical EIS process can take over a year to complete—it is not unusual for a single EIS to take years to complete. If it is determined that an EIS is required for a permit or project to go ahead, the most important thing a rancher can and should do is get involved in the EIS process from the very beginning and stay involved throughout the process. The full EIS process has several critical steps where ranchers can engage and influence the process:

1. Scoping: at the very beginning of the EIS process, the US Forest Service or BLM must determine what the EIS will address. This includes what analyses will be conducted and importantly what alternative actions will be considered. The scoping process sets the stage for the rest of the EIS.2. Public Comments: There are multiple opportunities for formal public comments, included after the draft and final EIS are published for public review. By commenting on the draft and final EIS, ranchers can make sure their voices are heard in the process and that they have the right to appeal decisions in necessary. Agencies are required to respond to all public comments.

While the contents of NEPA reports are often complex and can take months or years to develop, the steps in the process of developing a NEPA document are always the same:

1. A project is proposed, for example a grazing permit renewal or a new dirt tank
   • This may be initiated by the agency, by you for a project on your allotment, or cooperatively with the agency
2. Initial evaluation to determine if the project will likely have environmental impacts
   • For common project types, there are agency policies that determine if further review is needed
3. If environmental impacts are likely, the agency prepares an Environmental Assessment
   • Most grazing permits and range improvements will require an Environmental Assessment
   • The public, including ranchers, can and should participate in the Environmental Assessment process
4. The NEPA process can now follow two different paths: A Finding of No Significant Impact and a final decision by the agency, or a more detailed Environmental Impact Statement.
   • For most grazing permit renewals and range improvements, the NEPA process ends with final decision based on the Environmental Assessment
5. If it is determined a project will have significant environmental impacts, a full Environmental Impact Statement is required. The steps in this process are detailed on the Full EIS Process page.

Overview

Public and private land managers are often experts in managing their own ranches or the adjacent public lands.  However, they may not have access to the latest science that can help them solve challenging problems. Scientists at universities and government agencies are constantly producing new information about the management of rangelands, but this information may not directly respond to the questions ranchers and other land managers have about specific problems. This disconnect can prevent improvements in management. The idea of co-production of science was developed to respond to this issue.

Co-production is a term used to describe the process of scientists and land managers working together to develop research questions and methods for studying a problem. Instead of producing information that may or may not be helpful and delivering it at the end of a research project, scientists work with land managers to decide what questions are important to ask at the outset. As a result, scientific results are directly responsive to user needs.

Co-production is a useful tool for adaptive management and collaborative conservation. In adaptive management, land managers establish a management goal and monitor progress toward this goal over time. Range scientists can assist with this process by helping to design scientifically sound monitoring programs. Over time, the results of individual adaptive management efforts can increase knowledge of the functioning of rangeland systems. In collaborative conservation, multiple types of users work together to set goals and implement conservation plans. Many collaborative conservation programs include scientists to help develop conservation goals and monitor outcomes.   Co-production also provides a model for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process.

Overview

Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, more people throughout the western U.S. began to use public lands for a variety of purposes.  Many of these new users had different ideas about what public lands are for and how they should be managed than was common in decades past. These differences have been the source of numerous conflicts between ranchers, agencies, and other public land users.

As clashes increased throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, some ranchers, agency personnel, and environmentalists began looking for ways to overcome conflicts. What they realized is that they had more interests in common than differences. By focusing on these common goals, they could improve conservation outcomes. It also allowed them to build trust so they could address more difficult problems in the future. This approach is called collaborative conservation.  An early and important example of collaborative conservation is the Malpai Borderlands Group. This group of ranchers located in the far southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, came together to work with agencies and environmentalists to conserve rangelands and re-introduce fire into the landscape for management purposes.

Today, there are dozens of collaborative conservation groups across the West. All collaborative conservation efforts have the same basic characteristics - groups of people from different backgrounds that have a shared interest in conservation and believe they can accomplish more by working together. Often, collaborative conservation groups will develop new approaches to overcoming management challenges.

Overview

Rangeland ecosystems are dynamic and offer new challenges requiring different management approaches.  Livestock management on public lands has always been difficult due to changing conditions over the course of a year or even across multiple years.  However, regulations often required a fixed number of livestock for each grazing allotment and allotment permittees had to follow fixed grazing schedules.  

Today, both the BLM and USFS allow for adaptive management, which is designed to allow adjustment to a livestock management plan when things do not go as expected. There are many different definitions of adaptive management and different ways it is implemented, but it always has two essential components: establishing a set of management goals and conducting regular monitoring to track progress toward meeting those goals.

On public lands grazing allotments, adaptive management is now written into Allotment Management Plans and Annual Operating Instructions. These documents set the rules permittees must follow over the life of their 10-year term grazing permit. By including adaptive management in these documents, the BLM and USFS are able to provide ranchers with more management flexibility allowing the agencies and ranchers to work together to solve problems as they come up. But this can only happen if adaptive management is written into the Allotment Management Plan. As a result, it is essential that ranchers ask that adaptive management is included for their allotment at the time of permit renewal.

Overview 

The difference between conservation and preservation missions of the federal land management agencies stretches back to their establishment in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the US Forest Service (USFS) advocated for conservation, meaning that he believed public lands could be used for recreation as well as for livestock grazing, timber harvesting, mining, hunting, and research if done responsibly. John Muir, an author and environmentalist, had a different view. He advocated for preservation of public lands, the idea that public lands should remain in their original condition and be protected from intrusive uses such as grazing, logging, and mining.  Ultimately this split resulted in the creation of the National Park Service (NPS) and, later, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to manage wildlife refuges and protect endangered species. 

The fundamental difference between the conservation missions of the USFS and BLM and the preservation missions of the NPS and FWS results in different approaches to management and different types of land uses. While USFS and BLM lands are managed for many users, including recreation and resource extraction, most of these uses are restricted on NPS and FWS managed lands. Grazing is generally restricted in national parks and wildlife refuges and recreation is more tightly controlled to prevent alteration of natural landscapes, archeological sites, and possible harm to wildlife.