This week, I traveled to Central Washington while doing research for a story I’m working on that has to do with the sagebrush stepped ecosystem. It was a welcome opportunity to re-experience this remarkable plant and animal community, which is one of the most biodiverse and threatened in all of the Pacific Northwest.

While old-growth forests and alpine ecosystems have plenty of fans, many people–even in the outdoor community–don’t know what a sagebrush stepped is. Still fewer know how to recognized the signs of a healthy or degraded steppe ecosystem. However, sagebrush steppe is one of the major habitat types in Washington, covering an estimated one third of the state prior to colonization. In its undegraded state, it is characterized by a mix of shrubs–including not only sagebrush, but bitterbrush, rabbitbrush, and wax currant–and tall native grasses that provide shelter for a wide variety of animals, including now-imperiled species like sage grouse and pygmy rabbits. The shrubs and grasses of the sagebrush step provide forage for herbivores like elk and pronghorns, which in pre-colonial times were hunted by predators like wolves.

Unfortunately, today very little healthy sagebrush steppe remains. An estimated two-thirds of the steppe in Washington has been destroyed, while much of what’s left has been severely degraded by cattle grazing. The particular piece of steppe I was visiting is located in and around Douglas Creek Canyon near Palisades, WA, and it is relatively intact compared to other areas. However, even there most of the tall native grasses have been eliminated by decades of grazing, while invasive European cheat grass proliferates.

I followed a winding dirt road up into the hills outside Palisades, eventually leaving behind private property and passing onto lands managed by the BLM, which is the federal body with jurisdiction over most of the sagebrush steppe on public lands in Washington and elsewhere in the Western US. The road grew more and more difficult, until my rented vehicle could not sagely go any farther. So, I got out and continued down what appeared to be an old cattle road that followed the canyon. To either side of me, columns of basalt girded the canyon walls, painted in colorful lichens. Songbirds sang from the trees that grow along Douglas Creek at the bottom of the canyon, and I was gratified to see patches of sagebrush and other native shrubs thriving on slopes that were too steep for people or cattle to reach easily.

To get a feel for what cattle can do to the sagebrush steppe ecosystem, check out the below photo of the road I was walking down. One side drops down into the canyon on a slope that’s presumably steep enough to keep cattle at bay-and you can see the vibrant shrub community that survives there as a result. The other side has clearly been affected by grazing, whether very recently or in the past, and it shows; note the profusion of mostly non-native weeds, including cheat grass.

The more I talk to people who’ve studied the effects of cattle on dry landscapes like the sagebrush steppe, the more pessimistic I am that these lands can be grazed in anything like a sustainable way. The problem is that dry climates like this were simply not meant to support large ungulates in the numbers that are required for ranchers to turn a profit. Agencies like the BLM should recognize this reality and stop offering grazing leases to ranchers at spectacularly subsidized rates. Unfortunately, the BLM has been very resistant to change, even when compared to other federal agencies environmental groups try to influence.

The good news is that if these lands were allowed to recover from grazing, they could go back to something like the state they were in before the first European settlers arrived. Tall, perennial grasses re-establishing themselves would help shade out cheat grass while sequestering vast amounts of carbon underground with their extensive root systems. Restoration of the sagebrush step should be priority in the fight against climate change, just as much as protecting old-growth forests.

I hope that as time goes on, the public and policymakers will come to better appreciate the sagebrush steppe ecosystem, leading to changes that keep cattle off these precious lands. Maybe then, we will once again see this remarkable ecosystem in its full glory of native shrubs and perennial grasses tha tprovide habitat for countless species.