WWPBlog

The Whetstone Mountains are a large, rugged Sky Island range in southern Arizona on the Coronado National Forest. Largely due to limited access, these mountains have been spared the intense recreational pressure of some of the other areas of the national forest. Unfortunately, they haven’t been spared the adverse effects of livestock grazing.

However, Western Watersheds Project’s Arizona office has now successfully appealed a grazing decision for several allotments that would have entailed ambitious water developments - including well-drilling, spring development, and pipeline construction - throughout the range. We appealed the decision based on a number of issues, but our chief concern was the water developments and the impact of grazing on wildlife habitat in this remote and biologically-rich area. The Forest Service has been issuing a number of decisions for allotments on the Coronado National Forest, and they’ve been failing to provide the requisite site-specific analysis or to comply with the National Forest Management Act.

The new appeal decision remands the District Ranger’s grazing and water development plans for approximately 50,000 acres.

Thanks for WWP attorney Erik Ryberg for this win for wildlife and water.