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Ranchers who disavow their contracts with federal land management agencies risk losing their grazing allotments and are handing a "Christmas gift" to environmentalists seeking severe limits on public lands grazing, according to Tony Rampton, the Utah attorney general office's public-lands point man.

Rampton will deliver that message Thursday when ranchers converge in Richfield for an all-day "grazing rights" conference hosted by the Utah Farm Bureau Federation.

The bureau is hosting the conference, titled "Addressing Utah Livestock Uncertainty," in partnership with the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office. These organizations contend the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are engaged in "a systematic dismantling of livestock grazing."

"In a state where the federal government owns and controls 67 percent of the land, economically viable family ranches have been established by combining private land and water with public grazing rights," the bureau said in its newsletter. "Federal government claims to water rights, grazing cuts and restricted access have led to a 60 percent drop in family ranching businesses statewide since 1950."

According to Farm Bureau CEO Randy Parker, the agencies have sliced Utah grazing levels from 5.4 million AUMs, or animal unit months, to 1.6 million. An AUM equals the amount of forage consumed in one month by a cow-calf pair or by five sheep.

Thursday's conference is geared toward "proactive" solutions, rather than the "reactive" gestures gaining traction in some circles.

"We want people to look at a way to address these problems that won't involve confrontation and lead to more bloodshed," Parker said.

He was referring to the Jan. 26 shooting death of Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum, who had been imploring Utah ranchers to assert ownership claims to their grazing allotments and to tear up their federal contracts.

Several Piute County ranchers pledged to do just that at a Cedar City gathering of the National Federal Lands Conference last month.

Finicum was shot three days later by Oregon police, who were arresting him and other leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation where armed militants demanded the refuge be "returned" to local control.

National Federal Lands Conference leader Todd Macfarlane and his keynote speaker, Angus McIntosh, continued to peddle Finicum's message in follow-up meetings in Junction, Utah, and Boise, Idaho. Macfarlane is a Kanosh lawyer who contends McIntosh, a range scientist with a doctorate, has "cracked the Da Vinci code" for ranchers seeking liberation from federal oversight.

McIntosh contends ranchers have established a "property right" to the forage through years of "beneficial use" and easements to move cattle.

That's nonsense that will lead to serious trouble for ranchers who buy it, according to Rampton.

"They can cite nothing that gives ranchers a grazing right aside from the permit. Even if you say the rancher has ... the right to move cattle down a roadway, which is an argument we make, that doesn't give that rancher the right to graze cattle on the public lands," he said.

He noted McIntosh has no legal training and his assertions are based on his own 2002 doctoral dissertation.

"It's an academic piece. He said it was peer reviewed. So what? Who were the peers? It doesn't mean it's sound legal advice," Rampton said. "We understand you [ranchers] are under attack. The state is here to assist you in a lawful manner. We are asking you to not violate the law."

Rampton confronted McIntosh at a ranchers conference in Junction on Jan. 28, where Macfarlane tried to prevent Rampton from speaking. He spoke anyway, advising ranchers against tearing up their federal contracts.

"I assume he means well, but he really doesn't understand what he is talking about, and there is substantial case law that says that," Rampton said. "It will do nothing but harm the individual ranchers, destroy their livelihoods. I don't see anything positive coming out of this."

McIntosh repeated his presentations after Finicum's funeral in Kanab, where now-jailed Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy chimed in.

"If 10 ranchers would follow me, we would have had this thing beat a long time ago," he told ranchers.

In a filing Tuesday aimed at keeping him in jail before his trial on charges stemming from a 2014 standoff with Bureau of Land Management officials at the Bundy ranch, federal prosecutors presented a chilling descriptions of his livestock operation after 20 years of noncompliance with federal regulations.

"Rather than manage and control his cattle, he lets them run wild on the public lands with little, if any, human interaction until such time when he traps them and hauls them off to be sold or slaughtered for his own consumption. [Bundy] does not vaccinate or treat his cattle for disease; does not employ cowboys to control and herd them; does not manage or control breeding," prosecutors wrote. "Nor does he bring his cattle off the public lands in the off-season to feed them when the already-sparse food supply in the desert is even scarcer."

Bundy's unbranded cattle wander as far as 50 miles from the ranch, ending up in Lake Mead National Recreation Area and on highways where they have caused accidents, according to the filing.

While Utah officials repudiate Bundy's tactics, they contend Western ranchers have a lot to be mad about when it comes to federal "overreach" into their affairs. Agencies are seeking to usurp water rights, putting unreasonable restrictions on the land, even "colluding" with environmental activists.

"There seems to be an effort by the federal land management agencies to redefine multiple use as mandated by Congress," said Kathleen Clarke, director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office. She served as BLM director under President George W. Bush.

Clarke will be a headlining speaker Thursday, along with U.S. Forest Service regional forester Nora Rasure and acting state BLM director Jenna Whitlock.

While Thursday's event is billed as a "grazing rights" conference, many academic and legal authorities have told the Tribune in recent weeks that ranchers do not hold "rights" to graze livestock.

"Grazing on the public lands is a privilege, not a right. If [ranchers] renounce their privilege, their grazing allotment could, and should, be canceled and assigned to someone else," wrote Thad Box, the retired dean of agriculture at Utah State University, in an email.

"Permitted grazing on public lands should be a tool in maintaining health of the land, not for uncontrolled use by a permittee. Fortunately, most ranchers realize this and willingly alter their animal numbers and grazing practices to keep the land healthy," he continued. "Any permittee who puts his livestock, his financial gain or his pleasure above land health should, and probably will, eventually lose his privileges."