The Bureau of Land Management’s oversight of livestock grazing is contributing to the negative effects of a warming climate on federal landscapes, a government watchdog group says in a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
The letter, dated Friday and sent to Haaland by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), says that BLM does not analyze, much less address, the climate impacts of cattle and sheep grazing on federal grazing allotments covering more than 150 million acres.
By eating vegetation and trampling on landscapes, the livestock reduces the “carbon-storage capacity of the soil,” thus converting “soil carbon stores into gaseous carbon emission through the alteration of vegetative composition and cover, loss of below-ground sinks in roots, and resulting erosion and loss of topsoil and inorganic carbon,” according to the letter, written by PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse.