The article does in fact mentions the offset but seem to be oblivion to connecting a very obvious dot
The concept is simple..
I can do this on this piece of land A if I can offset its impact on it by reserving piece of land B..your just trading two pieces of land for different uses they do not need to be continuous.
The second point its all federal land because they bought is from Mexico..well they also bought the Louisiana Purchase. And also bought Florida.so does the federal government 80 % of the in those area?
Also note lower in the story that Clark County, not the Fed, was the one buying back grazing right on the other rancher..so if it fed land why is the county buying and selling the grazing rights?
The land wasn't really bought from Mexico, it was taken from Mexico as a result of the US winning the Mexican-American War. Granted, there were reparations paid to Mexico, but the basis for these payments was forced on Mexico by loosing the war.
The whole concept of "offsets" is rife with bureaucratic cronyism. It is left to mindless bureaucrats (BLM comes to mind) to make up the terms of the offsets. My experience with this concept proves that corruption is easily involved.