In 1989, the federal government declared the desert tortoise an endangered species and began negotiating a habitat conservation plan in Clark County, Nevada, to meet the needs of both the tortoise and the people, such as Bundy, who were using the land.

Under BLM permits first issued in 1954, Bundy grazed his cattle legally and paid his grazing fees on the Bunkerville Allotment until 1993. The season of use and the details of forage are stipulated in permits and leases thus federal control can be exerted on the land used for grazing. Throughout the nation, the BLM manages nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases, of which about 700 are in Nevada. As of 2010, 47.8 million acres (more than two-thirds of Nevada's 70.3 million acres) were managed by the BLM. Since 1934 federal rangelands in Nevada have been managed principally by either the Bureau of Land Management or its predecessor, the United States Grazing Service, or the United States Forest Service. After the end of the American Civil War, much of the land was settled by rural farmers, squatters and small-time cattle ranchers from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas, escaping from the post–Civil War Reconstruction and the associated violence and displacement. The original settlers in the 1840s and 1850s were Mormons from Utah and southern small-time farmers and ranchers from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The Nevada Territory was partitioned in 1861 from the Utah Territory, and became a state in 1864. Since then, the government has continuously owned land in what is now Nevada, including the Bunkerville Allotment. In 1848, as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States purchased from Mexico land that is now the southwestern region of the United States. The land to which Cliven Bundy claims ancestral rights was originally inhabited by the Moapa Paiute people. The area in yellow represents land managed by the Bureau of Land Management See also: Cliven Bundy History Map of all federally owned land in the United States.

Supreme Court the property clause of the United States Constitution grants plenary authority to Congress to manage federal property, including land. These arguments have been repeatedly rejected by legal scholars and federal courts, including the U.S. George ordered Bundy to refrain from trespassing on federally administered land in the Gold Butte area of Clark County.Ĭliven and his son Ammon Bundy, and their supporters, have claimed that the federal government lacks the authority to manage public lands. In 1998, Bundy was prohibited by the United States District Court for the District of Nevada from grazing his cattle on an area of land later called the Bunkerville Allotment. According to the BLM, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on public lands without a permit. According to Bundy, the federal government lacks the constitutional authority to own vast tracts of lands, an argument repeatedly rejected by federal courts. The ongoing dispute started in 1993, when, in protest against changes in grazing rules, Bundy declined to renew his permit for cattle grazing on BLM-administered public lands near Bunkerville, Nevada. As of the end of 2015, Cliven Bundy continued to graze his cattle on federal land and still had not paid the grazing fees. On April 12, 2014, a group of protesters, some of them armed, approached the BLM 'cattle gather.' Sheriff Doug Gillespie negotiated with Bundy and newly confirmed BLM director, Neil Kornze, who elected to release the cattle and de-escalate the situation.

On March 27, 2014, 145,604 acres (589 km 2) of federal land in Clark County were temporarily closed for the 'capture, impound, and removal of trespass cattle.' BLM officials and law enforcement rangers began a roundup of such livestock on April 5, and Cliven Bundy's son, Dave, was arrested. The 2014 Bundy standoff was an armed confrontation between supporters of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and law enforcement following a 21-year legal dispute in which the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) obtained court orders directing Bundy to pay over $1 million in withheld grazing fees for Bundy's use of federally owned land adjacent to Bundy's ranch in southeastern Nevada. Bundy standoff (the United States) Show map of the United States

Federal resources border cattle range