Is grass-feed beef a good way to conserve land?

My theory is, cattle are very land-intensive. It takes many acres to support one cow. Therefore, buying grass-fed beef might be a good way to support large pastures.

I've read a bit about the idea and there are conflicting opinions. As I see it, free-range cattle are somewhat of a replacement for the bison that used to roam.

Our local grocery store has grass-fed hamburger, which is even labeled "regenerative", for $6.99/lb. I buy a fair amount of it

Regardless, I love beef and would hate to give it up completely.

My homestead land is right in the middle of free-range cattle ranches.  Most of my neighbors are generational cattle raisers, with me being one of the exceptions.  Raising cattle has it's pluses and minuses.  If you want to look at it from a land-use point of view, it allows lots of food production on land that would be otherwise uncultivatable, ie: too steep/rocky/dry, ect for farming.  In the arid West, it also helps reduce fire danger, because large amounts of dry grass are being removed.

On the negative side, there's environmental damage do to trampling, soil compaction, and damage to natural water sources, where the cattle all crowd in to drink.

We eat meat, and are not about to give up things like beef, but we attempt to limit consumption to reasonable amounts.  We don't grill big steaks, or make large roasts.  We tend to favor stir-fries, with the addition of some beef, or other meats.

The neighbors down the hill from me are Native American, and one idea I thought worth discussing is whether or not importing bison into our area would be something they would be interested in.  Their status as Native Americans might give them greater pull in terms of getting live bison stock, which I assume has a high price premium attached to it.  They would almost certainly want them for hunting, rather than religious activites, so that might not go well with the groups that could potentually supply livestock.

First thing here should be to define 'conserve'. That definition is often gotten wrong. Conserve means "WISE USE". It does not mean preservation, and it does have to include use by people, not animals.

Grass fed needs to be defined also. Cattle are ruminants. as such, they are physically adapted to grow when fed a grass diet. Most beef are grown on pasture containing grass for most of their life. There are some that may be raised exclusively on a diet that has a large component of hay, which is also typically grass.

There is another term that is not mentioned here. That is 'grass FINISHED'. The beef industry largely converted to this format sometime back (grown on grass but finished on grain) as marbling could be promoted at a given point in time on an animal by converting/finishing on grain. Genetics could be selected for, among other things, larger animal/carcass size as these could be finished easily on grain but were difficult or impossible to finish on grass.

When cattle are grazed PROPERLY on a grassland ecosystem, they can exist symbiotically within the ecosystem. There are multiple ways to do this (pasture/range management). Cattle can provide benefits to pasture/range settings. Range/grassland systems can and do exist just fine without cattle.