Greens Push Huge ‘Prairie Reserve’—Bison, Not Cattle and People

July 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—A virtual hearing was held on July 21 by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), for public comment on an outrageous scheme pushed by the elite greens for the American Prairie Reserve (APR), which is to feature bison, not food production, and comprise an area over 3 million acres, bigger than whole countries, like Lebanon. The idea is to put together land currently owned and managed by the BLM—and used by area ranchers for grazing—along with adjacent land being purchased by the corporate, billionaire class, in the name of going “back to nature.” Any use for food production, or any other economic activity would be ended.

The Bureau of Land Management was mandated from its start historically to support food production and security, not to prevent it. The APR is a huge test case to nullify that mandate. “The heart of the matter is this is the first time BLM [land] would be removed from ag production,” said Chuck Denowh, policy director for the United Property Owners of Montana, as reported in the July 15 issue of Western Ag Reporter, an industry newspaper based in Billings.

The APR is a non-profit entity, one of whose backers boasts that their intent is to end food production on the APR, and create a wildlife preserve that will be the Serengeti of North America. Instigators and backers include the World Wildlife Fund, the Wyss Fund, and individuals and foundations associated with Microsoft, Pepsico, Hewlett-Packard and the like.

On July 1, scenarios for the APR were issued by the backers, including proposals to end livestock grazing practices, remove barbed wire fencing, put in electric fencing to favor wild “corridors,” put in year-round bison grazing (not rotational cattle and sheep grazing), and other practices, setting land management back a century.

There is strong and scientific opposition from the Montana Public Lands Council, with rancher members going back generations, but they are very tied up with work demands, given the drought, grasshoppers and other challenges, to fight the money bags and their lawyers pushing green onslaught. This is one of the many fronts of the “30×30” land lock-up of the Green Deal in the Trans-Atlantic.