The Bureau of Land Management is once again attempting to work out an acceptable plan that would allow some livestock grazing in sections of the Sonoran Desert National Monument.
BLM on Friday released a draft environmental assessment analyzing limited grazing activity in the Arizona monument, following a federal court throwing out a 2020 version of the plan.
The new land-use proposal would allow grazing for “brief periods” on six grazing allotments, “based on the availability of forage and subject to additional, allotment-specific analysis.”
The proposal was prompted by a ruling last August by Judge Susan Bolton with the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona that rejected BLM’s 2020 decision to authorize grazing on potentially tens of thousands of acres in the Sonoran Desert National Monument, which was established by then-President Bill Clinton in 2001.
