WildEarth Guardians

Monday, November 3, 2003
Federal Judge Cancels Grazing Permits, Rules Forest Service Violated Endangered Species Protections

In a precedent-setting ruling, a federal judge invalidated seven livestock grazing permits across more than 140,000 acres of national forest land in New Mexico and Arizona
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Santa Fe, NM - In a precedent-setting ruling, a federal judge invalidated seven livestock grazing permits across more than 140,000 acres of national forest land in New Mexico and Arizona. The judge found that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to fully consider the effects of grazing on endangered wildlife, including the Mexican spotted owl, lesser long-nosed bat, loach minnow, and spikedace.

In his 10-30-03 order, Judge David Bury canceled grazing permits on seven allotments in the Cibola, Coconino, Coronado, and Tonto national forests due to the Forest Service's failure to analyze the effects of grazing prior to issuing a grazing permit and consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the effects of grazing on endangered wildlife over the entire ten-year term of the grazing permits. Judge Bury also ordered the Forest Service to consult for the full ten-year term of twenty-one other grazing permits on seven New Mexico and Arizona national forests.

The Forest Service has preferred to analyze grazing on only a three-year term?even when issuing permits for a 10-year period. The three-year consultation process sought to expeditiously bring all national forest grazing activities into compliance with the Endangered Species Act. However, an analysis of three years of grazing is much less likely to show the long-term adverse environmental impacts of a ten-year grazing permit on threatened and endangered species. Now, based on the ruling, the Forest Service must submit the allotments to a more rigorous and binding consultation process under the ESA.

"This ruling is a huge victory for wildlife because Judge Bury did not merely slap the Forest Service on the wrist," said Laurele Fulkerson, WildEarth Guardians' Grazing Program Director. "Instead, he cancelled the permits until the necessary analyses are completed, reversing a long standing Forest Service policy of permitting grazing damage while lengthy analyses are conducted," added Fulkerson.

Judge Bury's ruling is analogous to two recent decisions?one by Judge Christina Armijo last December and another by Chief Judge James Parker last April?which ordered the Forest Service to consult over the entire ten-year term of grazing permits on the Copper Creek allotment in the Gila National Forest and the Sacramento allotment in the Lincoln National Forest.

Like Judges Armijo and Parker, Judge Bury rejected the Forest Service's defense that a 1995 federal budget law called the Rescissions Act exempted the agency from complying with environmental laws, stating that "[t]he Rescissions Act did not suspend Defendant's duty to comply with the ESA, including its duty to analyze the entire scope of its action."

This lawsuit is one of more than a dozen legal challenges brought by WildEarth Guardians to ensure that the Forest Service protects native forests, rivers, and endangered wildlife from damage by livestock. To date, the group has won important protections for many of the species dependent on healthy ecosystems on national forests, such as reducing the number of cattle that can graze in key sensitive habitats and barring cattle from a number of streams and rivers throughout the southwest. For further information see our Grazing Reform webpage.

Go here for a copy of Judge Bury's ruling.