Rangeland Management

More Emphasis Needed on Declining and Overstocked Grazing Allotments Gao ID: RCED-88-80 June 10, 1988

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) and the Forest Service's range management programs to determine: (1) their progress in improving range conditions; (2) whether they based grazing levels on recent and accurate rangeland assessments; (3) whether they used range improvement funds on the most beneficial projects; (4) the adequacy of their range condition inventory and monitoring systems; and (5) the success of the Experimental Stewardship Program (ESP).

GAO found that: (1) BLM and the Service lacked reliable, current information on conditions and trends for much rangeland; (2) the most recent reports showed that over 50 percent of the rangelands were in either poor or fair condition and about 8 percent were in declining condition; (3) about 19 percent of the grazing allotments were overstocked and subject to further deterioration, but the agencies did not adjust authorized livestock grazing levels in 75 percent of these cases; (4) many range managers cited insufficient data as a reason for not scheduling grazing reductions; (5) livestock carrying capacity assessments were often old and outdated; (6) neither agency focused management attention or resources on declining or overstocked allotments; and (7) 66 percent of BLM and 27 percent of Service grazing allotments did not have management plans, and many of the existing plans were over 10 years old.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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