The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), a fairly litigious environmental group, has taken to shaming ranchers for harming federal grazing lands by posting photos of degraded lands. Professor Bainbridge has an interesting post on what happened when a rancher fought back and won a substantial defamation judgment against CBD. Moreover, it turns out that government scientists investigating the rancher for potential environmental violations were giving money at the same time. While I'm not convinced this was a legal conflict of interest, it certainly explains why the rancher did not believe federal officials would neutrally evaluate any claims against him.