Excerpt:
"In 1999, a corner was turned quietly in the `grazing wars' when the state of Colorado awarded a 25-year lease on its 87,000-acre Chico Basin Ranch, located southeast of Colorado Springs, to ranchers Duke and Janet Phillips through a competitive process.

"This wasn't because they had beat out The Nature Conservancy for the lease. This was no political victory of industry over the environment, as many in the conservation community at the time feared it would be. (One anti-grazing activist complained that the Colorado State Land Board could have made "more revenue for public schools and better protect the ecological value of the land if it had opened up these `grazing lands' to competitive bidding for non-ranching, non-extractive conservation purposes.")

"That's because the Phillips had every intention of hitting high environmental standards on the ranch - a goal that has been admirably achieved despite a persistent drought."