The Beef Industry is Destroying the American West and Worsening the Climate Crisis
SEPTEMBER 29, 2023
BY ERIKA SCHELBY
When conservationist Aldo Leopold persuaded the U.S. Forest Service in 1924 to establish the nation’s first federally approved wilderness of more than 500,000 acres around the headwaters of the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico, he did not anticipate that this priceless pristine land would be invaded by cattle. This problem would take root around the mid-1970s after a bankrupt rancher “abandoned his cattle in the wilderness.”
Similarly, he did not foresee the shrinking of global wilderness areas, the issuing of destructive grazing permits for 1.5 million cattle on U.S. public lands, or the challenges posed by planetary climate change.
To this day, unbranded feral livestock in the Gila Wilderness cause extensive damage to a delicate riparian ecosystem and the land and wildlife on this protected federal terrain.
Livestock waste also harms the Southwest’s last free and untamed stretch of a major river—the Gila, a tributary of the Colorado River. As soon as this wild stream leaves the Gila Wilderness and continues its long journey to Yuma, Arizona, where it joins the Colorado River, every drop of it is spoken for.
Livestock waste also harms the Southwest’s last free and untamed stretch of a major river—the Gila, a tributary of the Colorado River. As soon as this wild stream leaves the Gila Wilderness and continues its long journey to Yuma, Arizona, where it joins the Colorado River, every drop of it is spoken for.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/09/29/the-beef-industry-is-destroying-the-american-west-and-worsening-the-climate-crisis/
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