Rangeland Management on the Bighorn NF Under Siege- 

​​Tongue Range District 

Improving Riparian Systems by Maintaining Proper Upland Residual Standing Herbage on the Bighorn National Forest – is an educational tool produced to explain the current range management program in the Tongue Ranger District as it has been implemented since 2005. The Council for the Bighorn Range supports this management.  
 
The management direction outlined in the Tongue AMP (allotment management plan), including the allowable use guideline, was never designed to maximize livestock grazing. The AMP is designed for sustainable grazing while moving the rangeland resources towards the desired conditions and still providing for the needs of other multiple uses on the same public lands.  [https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/43/4100.0-5] 
 
The Council for the Bighorn Range recently learned that a paper titled “Refining Robel Pole for Grazed Idaho Fescue Grasslands in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming” by R. Benjamin, B. Stam, and J.D. Scasta was published in Rangeland Ecology and Management, Volume 83 (2022) pages 161-174. Although CBR was eliminated from being a part of the collaborative group involved in this study, we have carefully reviewed the many documents we have received in years of FOIAs showing much of the history of grazing on the Tongue Ranger District and the Benjamin et al. paper. As a result, we have identified several issues/concerns and questions with the range management program in the Tongue Ranger District in future years.