By John Mattingly
Cliven Bundy is the Nevada rancher who has gained national attention recently for orchestrating an armed resistance to the BLM’s attempt to round up his cattle for non-payment of about a million dollars in fines and fees. Bundy claims it’s only $300,000, but either way, it’s a significant amount of money.
The nub of the conflict is that Bundy’s grazing privileges were curtailed by the BLM due to the listing of the desert tortoise as a threatened species on the vast BLM range where Bundy historically ran his cattle. “Privilege” is the key word here. Ever since the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, the BLM has been struggling and litigating to make it clear that grazing privileges are just that: privileges, not property rights, and not any species or sub-species of a property right. They are grazing privileges, granted at the pleasure of the BLM. The property belongs to the public. Public lands are owned by the public. Obvious as this is, it has taken decades for ranchers to fully understand what that means.