Federal land managers responsible for issuing grazing permits on local public lands say those privileges are compatible with the recent national push to provide further protection of Anasazi ruins on 164,000 acres in Montezuma County.

The arid region of twisting canyons and vast mesas contains 30 allotments of rangeland, which cover 95 percent of land that is slated to be designated as either a national conservation area or a national monument.

The area, currently under the umbrella of the Bureau of Land Management, is utilized by some 20 ranchers, each with a 10-year permit to graze livestock in a particular area. That livelihood would be protected regardless of which federal designation is eventually adopted, says the BLM, along with hundreds of ancient cultural sites that are scattered throughout the landscape.

"The intent of legislation is to protect multiple use, including grazing and gas production," said Cal Joyner, BLM manager for the San Juan Basin field office. "These rumors swirling around of grazing being curtailed or stopped is speculation that is unnecessary at this stage."

Whether or not grazing will be affected, and by how much, depends on a new management plan that will be drawn up if Congress approves a current bill proposing the enactment of a national conservation area. If that fails, Interior Secretary. Bruce Babbitt and President Clinton have vowed to declare the region a national monument. The planning process for either designation is expected to take up to four years, and will involve numerous meetings for public input.

Joyner emphasized that Babbitt has repeatedly assured that grazing is compatible with preserving cultural resources, and points out that the management plan just completed for Grand Staircase Escalante Monument includes grazing privileges. Others are skeptical, fearing a national designation could close access roads to pastures or reduce the amount of cattle allowed on public land pastures relied upon by ranching operations.

"The trend is that any time there is a special federal designation for public lands then there will be more regulations on grazing such as the reduction of animals allowed with each permit," said Mitzi Wallace, rancher and wife of a fifth-generation rancher in McElmo Canyon. "Those cuts will threaten our livelihood and income."

Their family holds the largest permit to graze livestock on federal land allotments in McElmo, Hovenweep, and Negro canyons and on top of Cajon Mesa. Situated within the area proposed for new federal protection, the Wallaces do not have faith that local ranching needs, or those of other users of the land, such as recreationists, will be adequately accommodated during the upcoming management-plan process.

She says other ranch operations in New Mexico, Arizona and California have had to drastically reduce operations , or shut down, because of restrictions resulting from new federal designations, and she believes the public planning process too often ignores those that are affected most.

"Almost any restriction can be written into (the new) management plan, regardless of promises by Babbitt and others that grazing will be protected," Wallace said. "If ranchers lose road access through public lands to private inholdings where they graze livestock then their own land becomes worthless."

Wallace, along with other members of Southwest Colorado Landowners Association, is collecting signatures to kill NCA legislation in committee. And because President Clinton is committed to declare the area a national monument if no legislation is passed, the petition also demands a cease-and-desist order on all federal land designations that do not have congressional support.

"All we have to go on is past NCAs and monuments," said Chester Tozer, president of the Southwest Colorado Landowners Association. "We found that at first they assure grazing will be a part of it and then the plan changes in a way that hurts the rancher.

"Our petition is gaining strength because I think people know that we need to have more of say, he said. "After all, we’re the ones taking care of this public land."

Tozer is protesting his BLM grazing permit renewal issued last fall because of new restrictions that requires each pasture be left alone for one year out of every three years. The new rotation rules, placed on all BLM grazing allotments, were implemented to further ensure those lands have a chance to rejuvenate.