Rangeland specialist: Relationships with the public is key to BLM rangeland management

WORLAND- Working with the public is an absolute must for John Elliott, the supervisory rangeland management specialist for the Bureau of Land Management Worland Field Office

"That's key, we have to have those working relationships with our public in order to satisfy everybody," said Elliott.

Elliott said he supervises seven range specialists working at the Worland Field Office. The BLM grazing department at the Worland Field Office primarily does work in four counties in the Big Horn Basin - Park, Hot Springs, Washakie and Big Horn.

"Every year we get around 10-15 different allotments we get completed," said Elliott.

"An allotment is an area of land designated and managed for grazing of livestock. It may include private, state, and public lands under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management and/or other federal agencies," according to data.gov.

"To do that we work hand and hand with our permittees, we work with various different groups like the Western Watershed, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the State of Wyoming, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wyoming Game and Fish. Lots of different people are always invited to come to the field with us and help do our field work and review what we do so that we are all on the same page," said Elliott.

Working with other agencies in order to accomplish a goal that deals with public land is not uncommon, but how does an individual land owner go about acquiring a grazing permit?

"Our grazing permits are associated with a piece of property. Typically it's a historic piece of property that has always been with that permit. So when that ranch sells and that holds base property, you can apply for a grazing permit," Elliott explained. "And then there's an application process to make sure that you are a bona-fide permittee and that you are a legitimate customer. We go through that application process to approve you as an applicant and then we transfer the grazing permit."

According to Elliott, if there are no changes to the permit, they can hand it over to an applicant, which they are allowed to do by congressional act. If you prefer to makes changes to the grazing permit, then the applicant goes through the National Environmental Policy Act process, an environmental analysis.

The analysis will have input from archeologists', hydrologists, soils, US fish and wildlife, and game and fish among others. The idea being lots of organizations get a chance to look at the impact a purposed permit may have on a given area on public land.

"I think what people miss often is the amount of work the range specialists put into their jobs. There's 2.2 million acres that we administer out of Worland, 400 grazing allotments. If you divide that by seven, that's a lot of acres for these folks to cover. We guide them on where to go and how to do it, but they put forth the effort," Elliott said. "It always amazes me that they do such a good job and such a solid job, quietly done."

Grazing permits have been around for a hundred years, Elliott said. But according to him, one of the biggest problems they encounter is invasive species or weeds.

"We have encroachment by non natives that will take over perfectly healthy rangelands no matter how they are being used. It's not just a desolate dried up piece of land they are taking over. They will take over perfectly healthy rangelands," said Elliott. "What we do is we truly put the effort forward to insure that our public range lands are staying as healthy as we can keep them. And that multiple activities still occur on public land. That's a big deal. People often look at the badlands and maybe don't always consider that oil and gas, mining, or grazing activities are taking place."