ALTERNATIVES 15, 16, AND 17 



Least-cost 



Minimums required: 



Alternative 15 — 267 million animal unit 



months 

 Alternative 16 — 334 million animal unit 



months 

 Alternative 17 — 412 million animal unit 

 months 



Added constraints: 



Limits on percent change in acreage of 

 a resource unit grazed. 



Strategy E prohibited on Federal lands. 



Strategy E prohibited on selected re- 

 source units of non-Federal lands. 



Grazing prohibited in selected ecosys- 

 tems. 



This series of alternatives was tested to focus 

 attention on two major policy considerations. 

 In order to control investment and disinvest- 

 ment in various ecosystems, a constraint was 

 entered that allowed only a 5 percent yearly 

 rate of change in investment from the Resource 

 Situation — 1970 within each ecosystem. Thus, 

 10-year (1970 to 1980) and 20-year (1980 to 

 2000) transition periods were required which 

 would limit the impact on local areas due to 

 policy change. Use of Strategy E was not per- 

 mitted on non-Federal lands in order to recog- 

 nize multiple use considerations, especially 

 wood growth, and to limit increases in grazing 

 which, while efficient, were unrealistic. 



Alternatives 15, 16, and 17 indicate that 

 largescale improvements in accompanying out- 

 puts would be possible by selective management 

 of the range. Improvements in accompanying 

 outputs would come mainly from the non- 

 Federal sector and would result primarily from 

 abandonment of exploitative grazing. Strategy 

 X. The present performance of the Federal 

 agencies in the accompanying product area is 

 generally high. 



Evaluation of these alternatives reveals the 

 same" basic results as shown in those alterna- 

 tives discussed earlier. Production of animal 

 unit months tended to shift toward the most 

 productive lands, thus, concentrating output on 

 fewer acres. This enabled costs per AUM to 

 drop as low yield acreages went out of pro- 

 duction until finally increased requirements for 

 production forced cost per AUM upward. Ex- 

 pansion of production occurred mainly within 

 the Eastern Forest Ecogroup (table 13). Under 

 Alternative 16 AUM's produced in the Eastern 

 Forest show an increase of 201 percent over 

 1970, while the total national production in- 

 creases by only 57 percent. Production on the 

 Western Range and Western Forest would in- 

 crease by 26 and 25 percent, respectively. The 

 Great Plains ecogroup shows a 5 percent reduc- 



tion in AUM production in spite of the 5 per- 

 cent increase in acreage grazed. Land under 

 intensive management accounts for much of the 

 total expansion. This is intensively managed 

 land, mainly in non-Federal ownership. Only 

 small increases take place on Federal land. 



Land grazed would drop from 835 million 

 acres (1970 situation) to 721 million acres 

 under Alternative 16 as grazing shifts to the 

 more productive areas and investments are 

 made more efficiently. This is not nearly as 

 radical a shift in acreage as indicated under 

 Alternative 1, where only 372 million acres 

 would be grazed. Under the Alternative 1 shifts, 

 the Western Range acreage grazed would drop 

 about 4 percent, Western Forest about 37 per- 

 cent and Eastern Forest about 47 percent. 

 Acreage grazed in the Great Plains would in- 

 crease 5 percent. 



These alternatives would favor the Eastern 

 Forest ecosystems. However the shift to the 

 Eastern Forest ecosystems would be accom- 

 panied by an expected reduction in acreage 

 due to application of intensive management to 

 the highly productive resource units in these 



Table 13. — Production in animal unit months 

 arid acres grazed by ecogroup, token disinvest- 

 ment and investment are restricted, and multi- 

 ple use constraints are used on Federal and 

 some non-Federal lands 





Resource 



Policy Alternative 



Ecogroup 



Situation- 















1970 



15 



16 



17 





Production 





Million 



Million 



Million 



Million 





AUM's 



AUM's 



AUM's 



AUM's 



Western 











Range 



56.1 



68.2 



70.8 



72.9 



Western 











Forest 



10.7 



12.3 



13.5 



13.2 



Great 











Plains — 



92.8 



95.5 



88.5 



89.6 



Eastern 











Forest 



53.5 



91.0 



161.2 



236.3 



Total _- 



213.1 



267.0 



334.0 



412.0 





Acres grazed 





Million 



Million 



Million 



Million 





acres 



acres 



acres 



acres 



Western 











Range 



360.8 



375.7 



346.2 



201.1 



Western 











Forest 



97.2 



76.2 



61.2 



25.3 



Great 











Plains 



217.1 



227.8 



228.3 



217.9 



Eastern 











Forest 



159.8 



127.3 



85.2 



84.8 



Total _- 



834.9 



807.0 



720.9 



529.1 



81 



