All Permittee Meeting
Sierra National Forest
January 11, 2006
Supervisors Office, Clovis, CA
Just before the “All Permittee Meeting”, Aimee Smith – District Rangeland Management Specialist, Bass Lake RD, and I talked about the current situation in Range Management on the Sierra National Forest and the background for this meeting.
Cindy: Aimee, Thank you for working with me on this project. So, how did this meeting get started? Was there one issue, or several issues?
Aimee: Since the 1995 Lawsuit against the Sierra NF’s range program, a meeting has typically been held to discuss the Stipulations of Dismissal in the lawsuit and to convey general information about the range program. The SNF has not held an all permittee meeting since prior to 2001. I felt a meeting was needed to inform all permittees as to the status of the Range NEPA schedule on the Forest and to give them an update on other pertinent issues such as noxious weeds awareness and permittee monitoring agreements. The Region is in support of Forest’s drafting agreements with permittees to conduct their annual allotment monitoring, in an effort to reduce rangeland manager’s time on annual monitoring so that the long term left side analysis for NEPA can be conducted within our given timeframe.
Cindy: Was this your idea?
Aimee: For this particular meeting, yes, but the original idea for having these meetings goes back to the lawsuit and Jim Boynton, Tom Frolli and the Jim Shackelford days. We haven’t had a meeting like this in a while.
Cindy: How would you describe the Sierra’s relationship with these permittees?
Aimee: Overall, we have respectful and compliant relationship.
Cindy: How were the attendees selected?
Aimee: All grazing permittees invited. We have 28 permittees on the forest.
Cindy: Any other reasons for having this meeting this year?
Aimee: For informational and good will purposes – kind of a meet and greet for Ed Cole and Alvin Whitehair and provide timely information regarding issues (Regionally and Forest wide) that may affect the permittees.
Cindy: And what to you expect to be an outcome?
Aimee: I hope that we can project a positive interpretation of our commitment to complete our range NEPA and meet congressional intent and the plaintiff’s intent of the original lawsuit.
Cindy: I see something interesting and different on this Agenda, Estate Planning. What’s the tie in for the “Estate Planning”?
Aimee: This was sort of a side topic to deal with contemporary issues facing permittees and their desire to continue their ranching heritage. The idea was to provide some information on the types of eligibility for grazing permits, whether it be a trust, estate, corporation or partnership, so that the permittees are aware that we can issue permits to these entities if they decide to make changes to the status of estate that is tied to the permit (cattle and base property required to hold the permit are consider “property under wills, trusts estates etc.) If the ownership or status of ownership changes, the Forest Service needs to determine eligibility to hold the permit under said entity.
Cindy: Do you have anything that else that you would like to share about the Range issues on the Sierra? I know we have been working on this for some time and Range Management is still an important part of the National Forest System.
Aimee: Cindy, For the most part the range issues have focused on riparian condition and health, water quality, heritage resource protection. The Sierra has good long term monitoring data vegetation condition in meadows and annual grasslands, but lacks some key information on riparian condition. We are inventorying riparian areas under site specific analysis through the NEPA process—same goes for water quality, heritage issues etc—all are being addressed through site specific analysis and tend to be a theme that carries over from project (allotment) to project.
Aimee: Thanks again for your sincere interest in the range program—-it is very refreshing!
Cindy: Thank you Aimee for working with these permittees and working for the care and protection of the Sierra National Forest.
