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According to The Salt Lake Tribune (March 10), Texas billionaire Oscar Wyatt has struck again. He appears to be attempting to justify his obvious intent to control grazing on most of the public lands in the Book Cliffs of northeastern Utah.
Wyatt has apparently bid $90,000, a one-time payment in addition to the yearly grazing fees to secure a lease period of 15 years. These are State Institutional Trust Land grazing rights, for which the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has paid $10,000 per year since 1991. Wyatt has allegedly stated that he needs these rights to ``make a profit'' on his ranch.
To gain perspective on the matter, one must be aware of the history of the Book Cliffs controversy. In the fall of 1989, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF), the Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) and the Vernal District of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) joined together to form the Book Cliffs Conservation Initiative (BCCI). The purpose was to purchase private ranches for conservation of wildlife and habitat. Management for the land and wildlife would be assumed by the BLM and the DWR.
The ranches available for sale had been overgrazed, and much work was needed in order to restore degraded riparian-wetland areas and generally improve wildlife habitat. In addition, the scale of the proposed initiative was large enough to allow future reintroduction of native fish and animals. Because public lands were involved, a multiple-use concept was an...