Grazing helps in some areas, as long as the rancher gets to put as many cows as he determines is good for the land, which is not necessarily agreeing with a range specialist and wildlife biologist for leaving enough graze for other species (it cuts into the rancher's profit, there's that money thing again)
I've been the range specialist, or more properly "Range Conservationist." I was effectively a paralegal, and administrative judges made the resource decisions. Unfortunately it always seemed that the common sense thing to do was the first possibility discarded for one special interest or another.
No doubt in my mind the feral horse folks, the save the trees folks, the save the squirrel folks, the sage grouse folks, the pine marten, fisher, wolverine, wolf, butterfly, etc folks and their suits are a BIG problem, and again money rears its ugly head. The folks involved in these things, some of them at least, have a vested interest in keeping things as they are. Lawyers for their groups make no money if they don't have cases to pursue in court.
Sadly, all true. People who "feel" this way or that are given voice through funding, lawyers get rich, and natural resources suffer.
y'all let me know when you figure out a workable solution to these forest/wildland fires.....................I've been waiting to see on since the Laguna Fire in the early 70's and few more since then.............well, maybe a few more than a few.
I'm just a lowly Range Management major who only got to ply the "trade" for a brief time, but my observations tell me that it's all much like a dammed up river. A certain amount of water has to be allowed to flow. You can close the gates and impound ALL the water for a while, but all that water is going to go downstream eventually and nothing is going to stop it. It's my opinion that
excessive fire suppression is proving to be a very bad thing.
