The feds would have to stop distorting the markets in the West before any of this could happen economically, right? People didn't just forget how to grow orchards and pastures. They got run out of business by the California water projects and the BLM. As long as the BLM keeps leasing out grazing land for $1/acre and as long as Reclamation allows Stewart Resnick to grow 100k acres of nuts on otherwise worthless land, how can sustainable growers compete?
Interesting perspective. I always viewed the Sacramento Valley rice and nut crops to be some of the less objectionable activities, seeing as how that valley is knee-deep in water much of the year, and the depth to ground water in many places is less than a meter. But I'm sure every form of industrialized agriculture falls apart under enough scrutiny.
Just note, for those not familiar with the territory, that the San Joaquin valley and the Sacramento Valley, although often combined as "Central Valley", are two very different hydrological systems.
Can't taxes from those gains just be used to buy water from elsewhere though? If water from elsewhere is cheap why not use local water to make money instead?
One thing people don't realize about the BLM and the Department of the Interior in general is that they maintain the world's largest airforce. This Airforce exists mainly as a mountain rescue and forest firefighting unit(s).
Also, because we're now in the 2020s, they are the worlds largest purchaser of drones, even beyond the military.
A lot of fascinating, cutting edge stuff is going on at BLM and DoI.
It doesn't bother me one bit that the BLM manages land. It's a major public benefit that we have so much information about our natural resources. I think the USDA soil survey, for example, a one of the great wonders of the information age.
The thing that bothers me is how they lease out public lands essentially for free to stockmen who proceed to destroy the landscape.
I'm surrounded by leased BLM land around here but the parts I've seen are not overgrazed. The lessees are very long term and their livelihood depends on the quality of the forage from year to year. If not overgrazed, cattle have a very positive effect on the landscape. They cultivate the ground with their hooves and excrete fertilizer and seeds. A well grazed lot grows more cow food than an ungrazed one. Even the ranches that focus on elk hunting graze cattle to improve the land for the elk.
> The thing that bothers me is how they lease out public lands essentially for free to stockmen who proceed to destroy the landscape.
They are all just giving the consumer what they want - low cost meat - which requires a ton of land both for grazing and for growing animal feed.
Asking them to raise the price on the stockmen is also to ask them to raise prices on consumers. I don't necessarily disagree with that idea, but (pun intended), the consumer has long been the holy cow of American politics.
A vanishingly small percentage of beef comes from the lands under discussion. [0] The reason is simple: cattle were not evolved for the alpine desert. Consumers wouldn't even notice if cattle were outlawed completely on BLM land. Wildlife biologists certainly would notice!
In reality, these policies are political shenanigans. No Republican wants to be the first to stop providing welfare to the Cliven Bundy types that one can find lurking under many cowboy hats.
> A vanishingly small percentage of beef comes from the lands under discussion.
I don't doubt at all the environmental destruction being wrought. However, the land's use is supporting some market for beef though, or else why would the question of $1 leases to stockmen exist?
Is it just that it's cheap and marginal (in both cost and quality) land that can be used for marginal production increases, or is it supporting some niche high cost beef sub-market based on its wilder place of production (high alpine beef)? It can't just all be a UBI scheme for alpine beef ranchers.
Every one of my travels to western states and every conversation I've had with other cattlemen there and elsewhere implies that it is exactly that. Perhaps once upon a time it was something else, and as the situation changed our government didn't keep up. I imagine that numerous bureaucrats at BLM and other agencies have some personal interests in the disastrous way that things are done. Some call this a "principal-agent problem".
Likewise, the various stupid wars we in USA fight aren't at all about our security or saving democracy or any of the other myths. Those are "UBI schemes" for armaments manufacturers and their employees in politics and the media.
Main thing I’ve learned from reading about western water and land policy is if you ever think “it can’t be that!” maybe you’re just not using your imagination.
