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The vast majority of the lands in the region are devoted to the production of range livestock. The Lower Colorado River basin supports 1,963 cattle operators and 750 sheepmen, who graze about 360,000 cattle and approximately 205,000 sheep, part of the year on public domain lands. The poor condition of the range indicates that overgrazing is still taking place. Complete adjudication of the range privileges is a must before good management practices can be instituted. Almost 800 range users' privileges have yet to be adjudicated. Many of these are small operators. For instance, 596 are in New Mexico, where the land is in a deplorable condition; 578 of the New Mexico operators are running sheep. PART III--PRESENT PROGRAMS FOR PUBLIC LANDS A. Types of public lands The 28,294,000 acres of public lands administered exclusively by BLM in the basin vary from the predominate desert shrub-grassland type at the lower elevations to isolated and scattered stands of ponderosa pine at the higher elevations. A moderate belt of pinon-juniper woodland type and some chapparel occurs at medium elevations. Approximate acreages for the general vegetation types are shown on tables Nos. 1 and 2. B. Management practices and uses of public lands The 28 million acres of public lands in the area are used for a multiplicity of purposes: 14Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 14,026,752 byte