Livestock Grazing
Livestock Grazing Proposal
The Juniper Group Sierra Club seeks to launch a conservation campaign to end livestock grazing of State and National Wild & Scenic Rivers, Wilderness Study Areas, National Monuments, National Wildlife Refuges, and other sensitive ecological areas in Oregon.
We will launch a public education campaign based on scientific research, and proven facts, in order to activate the public to lobby elected officials, federal agency managers, and other opinion leaders to end all public livestock grazing in these areas designated for their aesthetic values, conservation, and ecological preservation.
We will utilize various outreach tools, such as slide shows, videos, dissemination of scientific research and facts, group programs, and more throughout Oregon, specifically Central and Eastern Oregon. We will table information at community events such as county fairs, trade shows, etc. in order to widely distribute facts and images of grazed and ungrazed areas in Oregon to demonstrate the need for reforming grazing practices on these critically important public resources. We will lead public tours to view both intact and severely degraded watersheds, then we will submit comments to area managers and elected officials documenting the conflicts we have witnessed first hand. These conflicts will then be part of the public record.
Livestock grazing is currently permitted or grandfathered into management plans to allow destruction, and the continued degradation of these sensitive ecological zones. These areas are presently in their worst recorded ecological condition. We will generate letters of comment to area managers, letters to the editor of local newspapers, OP/ED pieces to these same news forums to create a ground swell of public support for ending livestock grazing in those areas most unsuited for this activity.
The Juniper Group seeks the support of the Oregon Chapter for this campaign. Additionally, Group Chair, Sandy Lonsdale, would like to elevate his work on grazing issues to the status of Grazing Issue Coordinator at the Chapter Level. Sandy Lonsdale and the Juniper Group are the Club members most familiar with, impacted by livestock damaged ecology. We have been active on these issues individually and as a group since 1989. We will enlist the support of the Rogue Group as well, and work in unison with anti-grazing activists there, and throughout Oregon.
Our short-term goal is public education and outreach to activate members and the public-at-large to the critical need for reform of grazing practices on sensitive ecological areas. Our long-term goal is the permanent removal of livestock grazing from these areas, either by means of permit retirement, or by compelling agency decision makers with overwhelming public support during the permit renewal process or the Resource Management Plan renewal process.
Funding will be necessary for transportation costs (van rental, insurance, fuel, etc.) and to pay for advertisements in local newspapers demonstrating the compelling need to restore these public resources. Side-by-side comparison photographs will be placed in every newspaper in Central and Eastern Oregon to visually depict the stark differences between grazed and ungrazed areas. This will stimulate discussion among local residents and generate interest by the public to attend our local outreach events in their local area.
We are exploring funding ideas, including grant proposals and contributions from wealthy donors. We may ask the Oregon Chapter to supply seed money in the range of $1,000 to enable us to ask donors for matching funds.
This campaign falls under the Sierra Club's national campaign to restore and preserve Wildlands for the benefit of native species and watershed health. This campaign will also build membership throughout Oregon, once the public realizes the severity of the ecological crisis, and finds that the Sierra Club is leading the way to reform. This campaign will also lead to the long-term campaign for cow-free wilderness preservation of Oregon's magnificent high desert and wildlands determined to possess wilderness character.
Facts
From Diet for a New America by John Robbins
- Amount of corn grown in the US consumed by livestock: 80%
- Pounds of grain and soy needed to produce one pound of edible food from: beef, 16; pork, 6; turkey, 4, chicken-egg, 3.
- Calories of fossil fuel expended to produce 1 calorie of protein from beef: 78
- Calories of fossil fuel expended to produce 1 calorie of protein from soybeans: 2
- Amount of US cropland producing livestock feed: 64%
- In California, the number of gallons of water needed to produce one edible pound of wheat, 25; apples, 49, tomatoes, 23; lettuce, 23; egg, 544; chicken, 815; beef, 5214.
- Amount of nutrient sacrificed by cycling grain through livestock: protein, 90%; carbohydrate, 99%; fiber, 100%
- Number of children who die as a result of malnutrition every day: 38,000 Number of people who will die as a result of malnutrition this year: 20,000,000
(used with permission)
