Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
6/27/2014
The answer to the world’s carbon emission problem could be as simple as well-managed grazing, a panel of experts testified before the House Natural Resources subcommittee this week. The science behind the use of this holistic process is basic, the panel said. When livestock graze they remove dead plants which block sun from plants below hindering photosynthesis. By allowing managed grazing on public lands vegetation will begin to thrive, using more carbon. “If you don’t have the grazer in there, you get the tall plants growing up, the leaves die and they self-shade and it shuts down your capture of energy, and it slows down your nutrient cycling completely. Your ecosystem fails to function,” said Richard Teague Associate Resident Director of Texas A&M AgriLife Research in Vernon, Texas. This carbon will then be sequestered into the soil through the vast root network of the grasslands. Yet another benefit presented by the panel is manure from the grazing animals which provides nutrients to vegetation. “The key to this approach is optimizing the natural process of soil carbon sequestration that has existed as long as there have been terrestrial green plants. Soil carbon is the basis of ecosystem health,” said Steven Rich, president of the Rangeland Restoration Academy during the hearing.
The panel said that the opportunity for carbon sequestration in the soil was very large and that this natural process would also be beneficial economically and would not require the technological advances of other carbon mitigation techniques. “This approach is proven, widely-demonstrated, cost-effective, rapidly scalable and extraordinarily beneficial both economically and environmentally. In fact, compared to all other options I am convinced it is the only practical, economic and politically viable option,” Rich said. “The scope is immense. We can now calculate that it is completely possible to sequester in the soil all of the CO2 that’s been released into the atmosphere by human activities since the beginning of the industrial revolution to the present time.” This conclusion was affirmed by Teague during his statement.
However, grazing must be well managed; overgrazing can be just as detrimental as not allowing grazing at all the panel said. Teague explained that grazers have a natural cycle which prevents overgrazing. The trick he said, is ensuring that they are able to replicate that cycle by being moved to new areas at the proper times, allowing the grazed land appropriate rest times. Current problems with overgrazing on federal lands, panelist Tommie Martin, Gila County Arizona Supervisor, said, is due to overregulation which hinders a rancher’s ability to use their best judgment at times. “Overgrazing is absolutely caused by, on federal lands right now, it is caused by the very rules and regulations,” she said. “You are forced into overgrazing following federal rules and regulations so the first thing that has to happen is a lessening of those.” She further explained that ranchers can be forced into staying in a certain area when they likely should move on. “Overgrazing can occur in as little as five days depending on where you are and the animals that you have there. Federal regulations will make you stay in that place 30 days up to 90 days, there is no way you can not over graze,” Martin said.
