A Strategy to Restore Western Grasslands Meets With Local Resistance

No cows remain on the federal lands set aside for grazing here above the Escalante River.

At first glance, this would seem a boon to land and cow alike. The layered rockscape just west of this small town is immense, rolling from the river toward the sky. The grass is thin and dry. The soil, the same. How fat could a cow get?
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Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

Brent Robinson, with his sons Tyler and Quincy, recently relinquished his grazing rights on public lands.

So, seven years ago an environmental group based in Arizona, the Grand Canyon Trust, began paying ranchers to give up their grazing rights when their herds, or bank accounts, had failed to thrive. By this fall, the trust had spent more than $1 million to end grazing on more than 400,000 acres.

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/01/national/01grazing.html