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.