Charles G. Curtin - Arid Lands Project
Conservation Biology - Volume 16, No 3. June 2002.

Excerpt from Introduction:
"The debate over conserving lands in the western U.S. has often centered on the role of livestock ranching in landscape conservation. Critics of ranching cite damage from grazing and advocate the removal of cattle from both public and private rangelands..., whereas others cite the importance of ranching in preserving open space and advocate grass banking and other rest programs to restore rangelands and the economic viability of ranching.... Implicit to both these arguments is the assumption that removal of cows is the best means of restoring degraded rangelands. Although the notion that a landscape degraded by grazing will naturally recover following removal of cattle is intuitively satisfying, the following evidence illustrates that degraded rangelands do not necessarily recover by rest alone, and that the conservation of grazed lands requires restoring and sustaining natural processes...."

Contents:

• Introduction
• Consequences of Livestock Grazing
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgments
• Literature Cited