Range Survey Cost Sharing and the Efficiency of Rangeland Use

Abstract

To meet the requirements of federal legislation, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Soil Conservation Service (SCS), and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) complete periodic assessments of the biologic and economic productive potentials of the nation's public and private natural resources.' Public land management agencies (BLM and USFS) are mandated by Congress to manage so that goods and services are produced at levels sustainable in perpetuity. The agencies' management plans, devised to accommodate their legislative directives, have been the subjects of several legal challenges.2 Insufficient accuracy of planning process information has been cited as one of the reasons for ruling against the management plans. Surveys conducted by BLM and USFS were found to be inadequate with respect to both sampling intensity and sample distribution across space and through time. Agencies must now base their resource management decisions on information which is significantly more accurate than that previously used. At the same time, because laws and regulations require selling nondeclining (even) flows of forage to avoid damaging public grazing lands, federal land managers tend to be conservative in the stocking levels they allow. If an error is made it will be on the safe