It’s deja vu again. …Last week, the Center for Biodiversity and the Maricopa Audubon Society accused Interior Secretary Deb Harland and other federal officials of failing to maintain a fence protecting a designated critical habitat in Eringo, Arizona. notified of its intention to sue. , and endangered native plants from poorly regulated grazing in BLM’s San Pedro Riverfront National Reserve (“SPRNCA”). SPRNCA exists to protect the incredible natural and cultural resources embedded in 57,000 acres and 43 miles of river corridors. It’s lost count of how many times the Bureau of Land Management has been sued over SPRNCA, but the number of times it has won is zero.

We at Archeology Southwest, based in Tucson, also track collateral damage from poorly managed livestock grazing cultural resources at SPRNCA and elsewhere. Fragile, generally irreplaceable, and too often exploited or neglected, cultural resources are important across human generations and across peoples and landscapes at different spatial and social scales. It is a connection. BLM has made many outstanding contributions to the protection of SPRNCA’s most important cultural resources, including the Paleo-Indian Mammoth Killing Site in Murray Springs, the Ancestral Village of O’Dum, the Presidio Santa Cruz de Terenate in Spain, and the mines and township of Fairbank. I have been active. However, BLM partially reauthorized grazing on four plantations within SPRNCA without first identifying and assessing the cultural resources damaged by grazing.

Public Law 100-696, which created and still governs SPRNCA, provides federal land administrators with “aquatic, wildlife, archaeological, paleontological, scientific, cultural, educational and recreational access to riparian areas and to the public.” Conserve resources” is very clear. The land surrounding the San Pedro River. His bipartisan Act of 1988, signed by President Reagan, established the first river-focused protected area in history, bringing southern Arizona to the global spotlight for conservation. . The law codified the recognition of San Pedro, which Life magazine called one of “America’s Last Great Places.” Neither PL 100-696 nor any other policy requires livestock grazing within this nationally and internationally significant river landscape. In fact, the law mandates that all uses permitted under the SPRNCA “further add to the primary purpose for which the protected area is established.”

The relevant science on the contradiction between grazing and cultural resources is at least equally clear and convincing. All available evidence, including reports authored by BLM, indicates that livestock damage most types of cultural resource sites. Detrimental effects of grazing include displacing, mixing and breaking wooden, pottery, glass and metal artifacts, and degradation of plant communities cherished by local and indigenous communities.

Here is the problem. Common sense is fully consistent with law and science regarding the use of livestock in SPRNCA. Of the tens of thousands of local, national and international visitors who visit SPRNCA each year, those who leave millions of dollars in Cochise County and neighboring communities come here to experience livestock grazing. there is no one Of the public comments to the BLM on SPRNCA’s Draft Resource Management Plan 2018 Environmental Impact Statement and SPRNCA’s Draft 2022 Environmental Assessment for four pasture allotment lease renewals, only a minority have supported SPRNCA livestock. there were. Bearing the brunt of cattle grazing in SPRNCA and having taxpayers bear the costs of easily avoidable lawsuits makes no sense for sensitive cultural and ecological resources.

Law, science, and common sense seldom come together to give such clear decision-making dictates for public lands, but when it comes to mandating the protection of the cultural and natural resources of the San Pedro National River Reserve, they rally. Help Archeology Southwest ensure that the Land Management Office follows the law, minds the science, and uses common sense instead of trying to accommodate more livestock grazing at the expense of irreplaceable resources.