   Range Management - February 12, 2003 Jeff Schalau, County Director, Agent, Agriculture & Natural Resources Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County Every once in a while, I deviate from the topic of gardening and into the realm of natural resources. This week I'm writing the column between sessions at the Society for Range Management (SRM) 56th Annual Meeting in Casper, Wyoming and I have "range on the brain". Rangelands are lands on which the natural vegetation is dominated by grasses, forbs, and shrubs and the land is managed as a natural ecosystem. Rangelands occupy about 40% of the land area of the United States and are valuable grazing lands for livestock and wildlife. These lands are also sources or clean water, clean air, open space, and recreational areas for people. SRM membership is declining and fewer university students are majoring in range management. Why is this happening? We have not lost that much rangeland to development. All of us that live in the west need rangeland managers and I'm going to try to prove my point before the end of this column. I hope to convince skeptics that we need them too. In northern Arizona, state and federal lands dominate the landscape. Much of this land is leased to ranchers for the purpose of livestock grazing. The rancher benefits from this arrangement when forage is available (lately drought has severely limited grazing). Society as a whole benefits from science-based range management. However, some environmental activists would like to put ranchers out of business. They feel that grazing is an inappropriate use of our public lands even though they have been designated for multiple uses. In addition, these activists rarely use accepted science to argue their cases. Lets go back in time and explore public land use issues in the context of forest management and the current bark beetle outbreak. Forest management (timber harvest, thinning, forest health treatments) has been sidelined for the past 30 years. We needed to reduce forest stand density on public lands. This would have reduced competition between trees providing the remaining trees with more water and mineral nutrients. These healthier trees would have had a higher probability of withstanding the bark beetle outbreak. Much of society seems to believe a "hands-off" natural resource policy is better and nature can take care of itself. This is exactly what is happening in our ponderosa pine: nature is reducing stand density through bark beetle mortality. The lack of proactive management has a great societal cost and this cost may really come home to roost if we have a severe wildfire season. Proactive, science-based forest management could have greatly reduced the severity of the current bark beetle outbreak. Now we face massive wildfire risks because of "hands-off" management. Range management issues could follow this same course if we choose a "hands-off" approach. Ranchers and professional range managers can work together to promote sustainable ecosystems while being economically profitable. Meanwhile, all of society receives various amenities from sound range management: maintenance of water developments that benefit wildlife and fences that prevent cross country travel and subsequent resource degradation, sustainable native plant communities, habitat for game and non-game wildlife species, limiting/controlling the spread of noxious weeds, clean water, clean air, open space, and recreational opportunities. Lets not forget, ranchers also produce food and fiber through low input production systems (rangeland grazing). What if ranchers were suddenly put out of business? Would any of our environmental problems be solved? I don't think so. Ranchers and rangeland managers have a vested interest in maintaining diverse, productive ecosystems. Lets support science-based rangeland management! For more information about rangeland management, readers may visit the following web site: rangelandswest.org. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension has publications and information on gardening and pest control. If you have other gardening questions, call the Master Gardener line in the Cottonwood office at 646-9113 or E-mail us at mgardener@verdeonline.com and be sure to include your address and phone number. Find past Backyard Gardener columns or submit column ideas at the Backyard Gardener web site: http://ag.arizona.edu/yavapai/anr/hort/byg/. |