Restoring a buffalo commons would save the federal government money

Evidence

Demographically, those figures may be matched with present Native landholdings, and they demonstrate the possible foundation of the buffalo restoration efforts and the buffalo commons. In west central South Dakota, for instance, Lakota landholdings total over 7.5 million acres, almost two and a half times the landholdings of the federal government. That land could be combined with areas like the Badlands (which really does belong to the Lakota in any case) to make larger buffalo ranges. As it turns out, it would actually save the government money to buy out non-Indian interests in the region. In the case of the Badlands reserve, for instance, Daniel Licht argues that the purchases needed would only be 940,000 acres. Even if this land was bought at an above-market price, the cost would only be 210 million, with a high, animal-proof perimeter fence, figured at 2,000 per mile, costing another 4.2 million. In comparison, Licht notes that in 1991 alone, the federal government spent some 87.4 million on 2.1 million acres of conservation (in planted cropland) in South Dakota, and it proposes to spend $800 million more. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 784

Categorization

• QUESTION: Licht’s economics date from mid-1990s; his 1991 conservation comparison is worth checking for a present-day update before citing in the polyad.
• XREF: connects to: Buffalo grazing restored 95 percent of native grasses on Cheyenne River — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 806; Conservation parks are too small for buffalo viability — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 796