This 129,000 acre gem is located northwest of Tucson, Arizona and provides an important patch of unfragmented habitat for Sonoran desert tortoise, desert bighorn sheep, cactus ferruginous pygmy owls, and the Tucson shovel-nosed snake. It is one of the only places where Nichols Turk’s Head cactus grows on public lands.
Sounds pretty special, right?
We think so too, and we’ve been urging the BLM to protect this place from the adverse affects of livestock grazing. We’ve been protesting proposed decisions to renew grazing permits on the Ironwood Forest National Monument because the BLM needs to complete a Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the monument before reissuing ten-year permits.
Ironwood Forest National Monument
View Ironwood Forest National Monument in a larger map
The forthcoming RMP should analyze whether the current levels of livestock grazing are appropriate, given the scant actual use on most of the allotments. However, even the low levels of use have caused long-term damage, from impaired understory development to eroded soils to, most worrisome, the spread of buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) Buffelgrass is one of the leading threats to the Sonoran Desert ecosystem because it increases the flammability of the desert, literally boiling saguaros to death in intense fires.
The BLM recognizes this threat and is spending thousands to remove buffelgrass from the monument. Hundreds of volunteers have toiled to remove this pest. Unfortunately, where livestock graze, the plant comes right back, more densely and perniciously than before.
What the volunteers removeth, the cows giveth right back.
WWP will be working hard to fight any plan that allows this deleterious land use to continue. To get involved, contact Arizona@wwp.cleanwebdesign.com or contact the BLM’s Tucson Field Office to be kept apprised of resource management planning. The RMP is expected out in Summer 2010, followed by a short protest period.
