FEDERAL RANGELAND POLICY: PERVERTING LAW AND JEOPARDIZING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

Invasive, non-native plant species, such as cheatgrass, and other weeds are arguably the single greatest threat to rangeland ecosystem service provision. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other federal agencies acknowledge this threat, but allow the threat to persist by continuing to treat the symptoms and not the causes. Weeds are spread by surface-disturbing activities, such as livestock grazing, which is the predominate western land use, and perhaps the major cause of the weeds problem. Nonetheless, the BLM has not changed their range management policies, and continue to favor livestock grazing over maximum productivity of the land. Using the BLM's management of invasive weeds, specifically cheatgrass, as a case study, this article argues that the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service have both the authority and a duty to manage public rangelands so as to ensure the sustainable generation of ecosystem goods and services. The increasingly urgent warnings about the effects of livestock production on rangelands compels the BLM and other federal agencies to re-examine current proposals and adopt policies that remove livestock and promote native plant growth on rangelands. Although the effects of these new policies may come slowly and at a cost, the long-term benefits of livestock removal outweigh the short-term costs to local community structures. Unless the BLM starts doing what it knows it should be doing, weeds will win the west.