The Lava Lake Protocol: An approach to sustainable grazing in the context of complex surface ownership and public land use regulation in the Northern Rockies

Background/Question/Methods

The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 brought a vast landscape into United States ownership. With the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, small parcels of land, typically 160 acres, started to pass from the public domain into private deeded ownership. Pioneers typically homesteaded lands that were fertile and well watered. Thus, in the arid intermountain region of the western United States, parcels of land in private ownership are often disposed like a string of pearls in a sea of sagebrush steppe. Much of this vast landscape was and continues to be used to raise livestock and the private deeded lands proved, in many instances, to be of insufficient scale to support such grazing without the use of surrounding public lands. For decades, grazing on public lands was essentially unregulated, leading to storied conflicts among ranchers with different perspectives on use entitlement. Eventually, Forest Reserves (later National Forests) were established and the General Land Office was reorganized as the Bureau of Land Management. An allotment system emerged after the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934, the era of the "open range" closed and violent range conflicts became largely a matter of history.

Lava Lake operates a sheep ranch in the State of Idaho across nearly 900,000 acres in three counties and two National Forests on 35 federal allotments with more than 25,000 AUMs and 24,000 acres of deeded property. In addition to these federal lands, Lava Lake maintains numerous State of Idaho and private leases to support its operation.

Lava Lake set out to determine whether a livestock producer can operate in an environmentally-sensitive manner when confronted with a highly complex pattern of surface ownership and an equally complex web of state and federal regulations.

Lava Lake addressed this question by examining and quantifying grazing capability, capacity and suitability and by developing and implementing a riparian and upland monitoring program that informs successive years' grazing plans.

Results/Conclusions

Lava Lake has adjusted its stocking densities as a result of feedback from its monitoring program. Range health has improved significantly. Avifauna and wild ungulates have benefitted and Lava Lake has been recognized by environmental NGOs and its principal landlord agencies for work completed to date.