![\"Sewell](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Sewell-with-Finicum-336x279.jpg\")
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New Mexico rancher Adrian Sewell, right, posing recently in Oregon with Robert \u201cLaVoy\u201d Finicum, the spokesman for an armed group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Finicum was killed by law enforcement during a traffic stop on Tuesday.<\/p><\/div>\n
“The message is we want everybody to freely use public lands,” Sewell said Thursday during an interview<\/a> with a radio host at KQTH-FM in Tucson, Ariz. “…\u00a0We especially do not want any violence\u00a0whatsoever.”<\/p>\n Sewell, who has\u00a0a ranch in Grant County near Silver City, renounced his grazing contract<\/a> with the U.S. Forest Service last week at the protest in Oregon. Media reported that he was the only rancher to do so, but Sewell said during the interview that ranchers from Oregon, Utah and Arizona joined him.<\/p>\n Sewell and others say they are\u00a0concerned about\u00a0federal overreach in a number of areas related to regulation of public\u00a0lands. Aamon Bundy, a rancher who led the Oregon protest until his arrest on Tuesday, asserts that\u00a0the federal government has no authority over lands that it leases for grazing.<\/p>\n Bundy was arrested during a traffic stop near the wildlife refuge. Also at that traffic stop, Robert \u201cLaVoy\u201d Finicum, the spokesman for the group, was shot and killed by law enforcement<\/a>. Much of Sewell’s radio interview focused on Finicum.<\/p>\n Sewell\u00a0said after he and his wife began ranching in the Gila National Forest, they ran into problems\u00a0with the federal government. Asked for specifics, he said ranchers “definitely don’t have the cooperation of these agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM.” He complained about the way the Endangered Species Act and archeological rules limit grazing.<\/p>\n