Sonoran Desert National Monument

When President Clinton established the Sonoran Desert National Monument was created in 2001, the establishing proclamation was fairly explicit about how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) should manage livestock: parts of the monument would be permanently closed to livestock, and they shouldn’t be allowed to graze in the remaining areas unless the agency could demonstrate that grazing was compatible with resource protection. The proclamation specifically identified the rich biodiversity of the Sand Tank Mountains, and attributed this richness to the long-term absence of livestock grazing. The proclamation also stated that this management should be extended to the other areas of the Monument "to the fullest extent possible."

The BLM hired Pacific Biodiversity Institute who, after extensive field studies, confirmed that grazing was having an adverse impact on native grasses, spreading non-native species, and affecting the recruitment of saguaros. The Nature Conservancy was hired to complete a review of the existing literature on Sonoran Desert livestock grazing (pdf) and found that there was no known system of livestock grazing compatible with the protection of monument objects.

Still, this information wasn’t enough for the BLM to change its livestock-loving ways, and in 2005 the agency reissued livestock grazing permits that authorize livestock until 2015. The BLM repeatedly promised that the forthcoming resource management plan would take a hard look at grazing and determine whether or not it was compatible with monument protection. Unfortunately, “forthcoming” was left up to interpretation, and after many missed deadlines, WWP got tired of waiting.

In 2008, WWP (represented by Advocates for the West) sued the BLM because of the unduly delayed RMP and compatibility determination. After some legal wrangling, BLM agreed to settle the case with WWP and commit to completing the full RMP by December 2011. We’ll be making sure that the final decision eliminates livestock operations from these fragile public lands, because our national monuments are worth more than cheap forage for feedlot operators. Our public lands- and the imperiled species such desert bighorn sheep, Sonoran pronghorn, Sonoran desert tortoise, and many other birds, reptiles, and plants that rely upon these places as habitat - deserve more than denuded moonscapes. These resources deserve the entirety of protection that monument status should afford them.