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In an effort to document grazing’s impact on the range and establish stronger relationships between permittees and the BLM, BLM Range Conservationist Juley Smith and rancher Cindy Miller, spend the day documenting range health on Miller’s BLM allotment.

Tips for Working with
the BLM and Forest Service

Improve relations with your range conservationist. Together you can improve the range.

BLM Range Conservationist John Reese is hopeful during the Trump administration the NEPA process will be altered and more range improvements can happen. “It’s a good time to bring up things that you need fixed,” he said.

In today’s advocate-centric ag community, the phrase, “If we don’t tell our story, who will?” is one social media post away from becoming cliché. John Reese, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) range conservationist, says that philosophy rings true for BLM and Forest Service personnel.


Reese addressed a group of young ranchers at the Idaho Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Leadership Conference Jan. 27, 2017.


“We need to encourage our brothers, our sisters, our kids to go get educated and go to work for [the government, BLM or Forest Service]. If they don’t work for the NRCS or the BLM or the Forest Service, then who does?” he posed.


With forthright scorn in his voice, Reese answered his own question: “Some kid from back East, who grew up hugging trees, and now he wants to tell you how you should run your cows.”


Reese offered cattlemen five tips for improved relations with local BLM and Forest Service offices:

  1. 1. Enlist local and state officials. “It’s all about who you know and how well you know them to get stuff done,” Reese affirmed. Get your elected officials on the phone and build a relationship with them, he counseled, adding to never underestimate writing to your representatives.
        He spoke of a county commissioner in his area who would run to his ranching constituents’ aid when they called on him.
        “However he got it done,” said Reese, “Leland Pollock had our state (BLM) director on speed dial, and he had our former BLM director on speed dial. He knew those people. He’d been back to Washington and had sat down with them.
        “If a rancher needed something done and they called him, he’d call our district manager. If our district manager gave him the rigmarole, he’d call our state director and say, ‘Hey, this is a problem I’m having. What can we do about it?’ and if he didn’t get satisfactory results there, he’d call the BLM director himself.
        “Pretty quick, when the BLM director calls your office manager and says, ‘Hey what’s going on down there?’ heads start to turn, and they start to listen.”
        The same thing applies to the Forest Service, Reese added.
        “I promise you, when that Forest Super gets a call from the governor of the state, someone is going to listen. Someone is going to pay attention. We’ve got to get back to the point of contacting our local officials if we’re not getting the satisfaction we want,” he admonished.
  2. 2. Get to know the range conservationist. Go into your local office and build a relationship with your range conservationist and the area manager, said Reese. Be sure to visit with them. Make sure they know who you are.
  3. 3. Recruit organizations like Farm Bureau. “Farm Bureau across America, especially in Utah, carries a lot of clout,” said Reese. “When the Farm Bureau president calls up the governor, it’s amazing what can happen out there on the land.”
        It always helps to have a group of people on your side, rather than just you, said Reese.
  4. 4. Make comments. The BLM is required to take public comment anytime they renew an allotment permit or submit a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) document, Reese explained.
        “Make sure you comment!” he said. “We get hundreds, sometimes thousands of comments from Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance or Western Watersheds Project. They comment on everything.
        “But one thing that you have that they don’t is that you have a vested interest.
        …You, as the rancher, hold a lot more clout than that environmental group does.”
        However, ranting about a terrible range conservationist or saying that a proposed idea is “dumb” isn’t a comment; it’s an opinion, cautioned Reese. Write legitimate things that the BLM will have to address.
  5. 5. Keep documents and photos. Make sure you keep a copy of your current permit, said Reese. That’s your contract to be out on the land. Also, take pictures of the range before you turn out and after you come off. If a herd of elk come in and graze the grass down to the dirt two weeks after you come off, you want to be able to prove that to the range conservationist, Reese explained.

Read the full article in the May issue of the Angus Journal.


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Editor’s Note: Paige Nelson is a freelance writer and cattlewoman from Rigby, Idaho.





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