Utah ranchers vow to stand up to government despite Oregon arrests

Sam Levin in Beaver, Utah
Monday 4 April 2016 09.27 EDT

On 23 January, a group of Utah ranchers gathered in Cedar City and made a pledge: they signed notices of “withdrawal of consent” to be governed – a statement rejecting the authority of the federal agencies that regulate grazing and charge fees to have livestock use public lands ...

“Utah needs to stand up and take their land back,” said Stanton Gleave, a 66-year-old Kingston rancher and one of the men who signed a “withdrawal of consent” document in January. “I don’t think we was ever supposed to be governed by a federal government. We’re supposed to be a free people … If we was ever free, we’ve lost it somewhere down the line” ...

Shelley Smith, deputy state director for the BLM in Utah, said that the agency works with ranchers to address their grievances. “Most of the time we’re in pretty harmonious working relationships with our ranchers” ...

Bill Hedden, executive director of the Grand Canyon Trust, a Utah environmental group, said the complaints of ranchers were wildly exaggerated – and that BLM’s restrictions are critical to the health of the land. “America has decided they are public lands,” he said. “No matter how these guys want to rewrite history … these never were their lands.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/04/utah-ranchers-oregon-standoff-federal-government-cliven-bundy