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Facts about Ranchland Conservation
- Forty-two percent of Wyoming
is privately owned. Ninety
percent of the state’s private land base is in agriculture.
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Agriculture
is the third leading industry in the state, generating $1.5 billion
annually in economic revenue.
These dollars have a compounding positive affect for communities
by supporting local businesses such as implement dealers, veterinarian
services, hardware and feed stores.
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Fifty
percent of the winter habitat for Wyoming’s major big game species
is located on private land.
- Ranchland fragmentation has
been identified as one of the top four threats to the future
integrity of the West’s public lands.
- Nationally, 70% of threatened and endangered species
spend some portion of their life on private land, 37% are completely
dependent upon private land for their survival.
- Development and
fragmentation of rangelands affect water quality and quantity through
increasing siltation, runoff, and pollution, and reducing
filtration.
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Agriculture
lands in Wyoming require an average $0.54 in public services (fire and
police protection, roads, busing to area schools etc.) for every dollar
of property tax revenue they generate.
In comparison, rural residential development requires $2.01 in
public services for every tax dollar produced.
- Studies have predicted that
48 million people will be added to the West by 2050, resulting in 26
million acres of open space being converted to residential and
commercial development. Of
the eleven western states, Wyoming is expected to have the third
highest growth rate.
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Wyoming
ranks eleventh nationally in terms of the percent of housing units that
are second homes. Among the
neighboring states, Wyoming is second only to Montana in the rate of
second home construction.
- In the United States,
between 1982-2001, 33.5 million acres of land (an area the size of
North Carolina), have been converted to development, of which 9.8
million acres (about the size of Maryland and Delaware) were
rangelands.
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The
number of Wyoming agricultural operators 65 years of age and older has
more than doubled from less than 12 percent in 1964 to nearly 26 percent
in 1997. Conversely, the
percentage of Wyoming agricultural producers age 34 or younger has
declined nearly 60 percent from over 15 percent in 1982 to a little over
6 percent in 1997.
- Experts predict 50% and 75% of ranches in the
West will change hands in the next 10 to 15 years.
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Polls
have shown that the loss of working family farms and ranches is Wyoming
voter’s number one conservation concern.
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