"Environmentalists this week sued the Forest Service, accusing the agency of kowtowing to 'scofflaw grazing permittees' on public lands in Utah.

The Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging the Forest Service is allowing 'excessive stocking rates, repeated trespass, and non-compliance with federal regulations' on Monroe Mountain in south-central Utah.

'When I visited these allotments last month with other members, we saw severe over-use of new aspen shoots and native bunchgrasses, as well as damage to riparian areas near springs,' the Western Watersheds Project's ecosystems specialist, Laura Welp, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah."

Jennifer Yachnin reports for Greenwire November 22, 2019. [2]