Renee Galeano-Popp began working short-term jobs with the US Forest Service while still an undergraduate at Northern Arizona University. Upon graduating with a BS degree in botany in 1978, she commenced upon a twenty-year career with the US Forest Service—a career that included roles, both as technician and professional, with wide experience in timber and range. In her professional capacity, she held positions that included range conservationist, regional botanist, and manager of the Wildlife, Fish, and Rare Plants Program on the Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico. Ms. Galeano-Popp resigned from the Forest Service in April 1998 following a six-month-long dispute over the evaluation of grazing allotments containing federally listed species. Since that time she has consulted on energy-related projects, and has performed land management planning for the BLM. In this video, Renee Galeano-Popp speaks about the harm to coyotes, foxes, and mountain lions resulting from predator control carried out on behalf of ranchers by the US government’s Wildlife Services (formerly known as “Animal Damage Control”). Recorded in August 2004. This video is an excerpt from Renee Galeano-Popp’s interview in Western Turf Wars: The Politics of Public Lands Ranching.

Franzluebbers & Stuedemann’s 2009 article “Soil-profile organic carbon and total nitrogen during 12 years of pasture management in the Southern Piedmont USA” is examined within a broader environmental context than that considered by the authors. My analysis reveals that their grazing protocol yielding the fastest rate of soil-sequestered carbon also produces an amount of methane from enteric fermentation that far outweighs any reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gas resulting from carbon sequestered by the soil upon which their steers graze. Comparing the findings of Franzluebbers & Stuedemann to those of Huntington reveals that if the highest objective is to reduce the greenhouse gas impacts of atmospheric carbon, then forestland should remain undisturbed. Forestland that has become unproductive cropland should be returned to forest if possible, not maintained as pasture. And because the heat-trapping properties of enteric fermentation-emitted methane will far outweigh any benefits associated with increased soil-sequestered C, the least desirable option would be to manage unproductive cropland as cattlegrazed pasture, even under the best grazing management. A more detailed treatment of the issues presented in this video is found in Mike Hudak’s essay “Claims That Livestock Grazing Enhances Soil Sequestration of Atmospheric Carbon are Outweighed by Methane Emissions from Enteric Fermentation: A Closer Look at Franzluebbers and Stuedemann (2009)” available in both HTML and PDF format at http://www.mikehudak.com/Articles/FranzluebbersAndStuedemannCritique.html References cited in the video Allen, D. E., D. S. Mendham, Bhupinderpal-Singh, A. Cowie, W. Wang, R. C. Dalal, and R. J. Raison, “Nitrous Oxide and Methane Emissions from Soil are Reduced Following Afforestation of Pasture Lands in Three Contrasting Climatic Zones,” Australian Journal of Soil Research 47(5) (2009): 443–58. Eat Wild, http://www.eatwild.com/environment.html Franzluebbers, A. J., and J. A. Stuedemann, “Soil-Profile Organic Carbon and Total Nitrogen During 12 Years of Pasture Management in the Southern Piedmont USA,” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 129 (2009): 28–36. Howarth, Robert W., “A Bridge to Nowhere: Methane Emissions and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas,” Energy Science & Engineering, (2014) doi:10.1002/ese3.35, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ese3.35/full Huntington, Thomas G., “Carbon Sequestration in an Aggrading Forest Ecosystem in the Southeastern USA,” Soil Science Society of America Journal 59(5) (1995): 1459–67. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, 714, Table 8.7, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ Johnson, K. A., and D. E. Johnson, “Methane Emissions from Cattle,” Journal of Animal Science 73(8) (1995): 2483–92. O’Brien, Dennis, “Cattle Pastures May Improve Soil Quality,” Agricultural Research (March 2011), http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/ar/archive/mar11/soil0311.pdf Tang, Shiming, Chengjie Wang, Andreas Wilkes, Pei Zhou, Yuanyuan Jiang, Guodong Han, Mengli Zhao, Ding Huang, and Philipp Schönbach. “Contribution of Grazing to Soil Atmospheric CH4 Exchange During the Growing Season in a Continental Steppe,” Atmospheric Environment 67 (2013): 170–76. United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator—Calculations and References,” https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references Wang, Xiaoya, Yingjun Zhang, Ding Huang, Zhiqiang Li, and Xiaoqing Zhang. “Methane Uptake and Emissions in a Typical Steppe Grazing System during the Grazing Season,” Atmospheric Environment 105 (2015): 14–21.

Author Dan Dagget has touted the riparian habitat along the Gila River as it flows across the U Bar Ranch in southwestern New Mexico as possibly the healthiest in North America. The region is home to a flourishing population of Southwestern Willow Flycatchers as well as two species of threatened fish. In June 2001, the Quivira Coalition, an organization that promotes "sustainable ranching" held a weekend workshop in Silver City, NM, that included a tour of this riparian area. In this video, Mike Sauber, Gila Watch co-founder, recounts his experience of attending that workshop and the visit to the U Bar Ranch. He reveals that there's more to the story of this healthy riparian area than ranching advocates have publicly acknowledged. Recorded in July 2003. This video is an excerpt from Mike Sauber's interview in WESTERN TURF WARS: THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC LANDS RANCHING. See http://westernturfwars.com for information about the book.

Doug Barber attended the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, but after a year changed his career study to civil engineering and transferred to the University of California at Davis where he earned his BS degree in 1974. Upon graduation, Mr. Barber embarked upon a long career with US Forest Service. He built roads on the Sierra National Forest (California). In Juneau, Alaska, he served as district engineer, later being promoted to regional facilities engineer. Mr. Barber earned his MS degree in engineering and science management from the University of Alaska at Juneau in 1979. He later served as district ranger (1981–83) on the Wasatch-Cache National Forest (Utah), and as deputy forest supervisor (1989–94) of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest (Arizona). He was assistant regional engineer in the Southwestern Region Office (Albuquerque, NM) from 1994 until taking early retirement in 1995. Subsequently, he has been a Naval base management contractor and completed five-and-a-half years of active duty in the Navy Reserve as a captain in Korea, Alaska, New Mexico, and Washington, DC. Doug Barber talks about the taxpayer subsidy of the federal grazing program. Recorded in June 2004. This video is an excerpt from Doug Barber’s interview in Western Turf Wars: The Politics of Public Lands Ranching.