Friday, May 27, 2011

Shining Horizons: Ranching for Resilience on Rocky Mountain Rangelands

A photography exhibit at Off the Beaten Path, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
May 2011


Photo by Matt Barnes
As a rangeland conservationist and ranch manager in western Colorado, I have the opportunity to live and work in a land of great beauty.  Indeed, the western landscape is what drew me to the rangeland profession in the first place.  Over the years, I’ve tried to capture a little bit of that beauty with my digital camera.  In the last year or so I’ve been doing a lot of ranch work, and since the ranching world tends to require long hours, I’ve often found myself working in photogenic places during the low-angle amber light of dawn and dusk, and many times I’ve realized that I was standing in a photograph, I just had to pull out my pocket digital, compose the shot, press the shutter button, and a great image was transferred from reality to pixels.

My photography has progressed from a pursuit of perfect, pristine landscapes to a documentation of living and working on the land.  What really excites me, as a land steward, as a writer and artist, and as a citizen, is harmony of humans with the rest of nature—not standing apart, either as directors or as leading actors in front of a static backdrop, but as an integral part of the greater whole:  a complex, self-organizing, adaptive system.
Photo by Matt Barnes
The American West is primarily a rangeland landscape, along with forested mountains and, in those few places that can be irrigated, grass meadows or small tracts of farmland.  But most of it is still rangeland, because it doesn’t make sense as farmland, ecologically or economically.  So, living on the land in most of the West means hunting and gathering, or the natural extensions of those life-ways: herding and gardening.  These activities, in and of themselves, are neither beneficial nor detrimental; their impact on the greater whole depends on how they are managed.  While in some places we are living with the legacy of poorly managed livestock grazing, there are many examples of livestock grazing where the health of the land is stable or improving. 

These examples of land stewardship for resilience are the heart of the next West, the agrarian West, and a few of them are featured in an exhibit of my best photographs, on display this month at Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Photo by Matt Barnes
The exhibit is subtitled “ranching for resilience” because the best stewards recognize that they are part of a greater whole, and they manage for its resilience: the capacity of the system to withstand disturbance and retain or resume its essential structure and function.  Resilience goes beyond equilibrium concepts of sustainable yield of any product or even optimization of competing land uses, to embrace a non-equilibrium world.  In the long run, nothing can be sustained in perpetuity because the system is always evolving; the ultimate unforeseen consequence of our success is that we create a new reality to which we must then adapt, or be replaced.  To surpass sustainability, the goal of land management should be to maintain or enhance the resilience of systems in desirable states, and to find and capitalize on opportunities to improve the functioning of systems in undesirable states. In so doing, stewards strive to create harmony in landscapes of great beauty.
My photographs are an attempt to capture a little bit of this dynamic world of rangeland stewardship.  This exhibit is an opportunity to share a glimpse of this land of beauty with others, especially those who do not have the opportunity to live it every day.  If you are in Steamboat Springs this month, I hope you will stop by Off the Beaten Path and have a look.
Photo by Matt Barnes
Editor’s note:  Matt Barnes, CPRM, is Director (2010-2011) of the Colorado Section SRM, and serves the SRM on the Rangelands Editorial Board and the Applied Science Task Force.  He is owner of Shining Horizons Land Management, and manages the Howell Ranch near Cimarron, Colorado, from May-October.  You can follow his blog and see more of his photographs at www.ShiningHorizons.com.
 

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Save the Date: Ecological Site Description Training Workshops

ESD - Save The Date
Ecological Site Description (ESD) Training Workshops

Society for Range Management (SRM) has been moving forward with the planning of additional ESD training workshops following the successful Pilot Interagency Range ESD Workshop in November 2010. We are excited to announce that three regional based efforts are currently under development.

The following information is intended to briefly update interested parties on these upcoming workshops. More information on agendas and accommodations will be forthcoming in the near future. Website information updated regularly. Registration will be on a first-come first-served basis and should be live no later than end-of-June 2011.

Please note that the workshop under planning for Reno, NV - August 2-4, 2011 - is now RESCHEDULED for June 2012.

Details for a second workshop scheduled for August 23-25, 2011 in Cheyenne WY are provided below.

Also note that a third workshop is under planning for Florida in early November 2011. 





INTERAGENCY ECOLOGICAL SITE APPLICATIONS WORKSHOP
Cheyenne WY/Nunn CO
23-25 August 2011

For registration and lodging questions, please contact:
Aleta Rudeen
SRM Director of Outreach and Leadership Development
arudeen@ranglands.org
(303) 720-2715

For all other questions, please contact:
Linda Coates-Markle
BLM Liaison to SRM
lcmarkle@rangelands.org
(303) 986-3309

Monday, May 23, 2011

2011 SRM Fly-In, Washington D.C.

Guest post by Gary Frasier, SRM First Vice President


2011 Fly-In
Washington D.C.

SUMMARY REPORT


2-5 May 2011 

Participants: 
Jack Alexander, SRM President
Gary Frasier, SRM 1st Vice President 
Wally Butler, SRM 2nd Vice President
Aleta Rudeen, SRM Director of Outreach and Leadership Development 
Kimberly Haile, SRM Young Professional
Jess Peterson, SRM Executive Vice President
Kelly Fogarty, SRM Washington D.C. Liaison 

The Society for Range Management (SRM) executive committee travels to Washington D.C. each year.  The purpose of this trip is to converse with SRMs partners about current and past projects and to identify their current training needs and how SRM can help them meet those needs and maintain its role as an professional society for its members.

The Spring, 2011 Washington Fly-In consisted of two full days of short meetings with various Federal Agencies, (Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Forest Service, and US Department of Agriculture officials), Sister Societies (The Wildlife Society, American Fisheries Society, Society of American Foresters), and commodity organizations (Public Lands Council, American Sheep Industry).  There was also a Reception by Western Skies Strategies (Jess Peterson) and a 2011 American Lamb BBQ hosted by the American Sheep Industry.


Under the leadership of SRM President Jack Alexander, discussions with each group centered on the Ecological Site Description Workshops facilitated by SRM, Training and Certification opportunities, and Native Range Forums, past and upcoming. 

We were well received by all groups. SRM is perceived as a credible science-based organization.  The discussions were very open with the dialog directed toward how we could all work more closely to achieve the goals of proper management of natural resources, especially during these times of reduced budgets. 

The Fly-In was considered a successful activity of getting to better know the “Washington Scene” and to expose the various groups we met with to SRM’s goals and objectives.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Upcoming Conferences of Interest

Two upcoming conferences that might be of interest to SRM members:

Grasslands in a Global Context

When: September 12-14, 2011
Where: Kansas State University
Abstract Deadline: poster abstracts due by June 1, 2011
About: excerpt from the website "...The conference strives to develop a current, comparative synthesis of grassland/savanna ecosystems within a global framework. With the development of Konza Prairie as a global research platform in grassland studies coinciding with the benchmark 30th and 40th year anniversaries of our research station and LTER program, the stage is set for a synthesis of past, ongoing and new research results in the context of global understanding of grassland systems. This synthesis is aimed at identifying generalities in the structure and function of grassland and savanna ecosystems around the globe, recognizing continental level differences of critical importance, while identifying significant research gaps that can drive future studies. In short, we hope that this conference will develop a critical synthesis..."
Website: http://www.dce.k-state.edu/conf/grassland/

Synergy in the Technical Development of Agriculture and Food Industry

When: October 9-15, 2011
Where: GÖDÖLLŐ, Hungary
Abstract Deadline: abstracts due by May 23, 2011
About: excerpt from the website "...The conference deals with the up-to date questions of the solar, geothermal, wind, biomass energy, heat pumps, and hybrid power plants of regenerative energies. Besides of the above mentioned actual questions and research results of the environmental industry, logistics, precision farming, furthermore issues of computer aided engineering, production systems, project management also will be discussed...."
Website: http://synergy.szie.hu/news.php

Friday, May 6, 2011

International Rangeland Congress and Tours, Argentina

Guest Post by Joe Wagner, PNW Section of SRM



South Patagonia PreCongress Tour

El Calafate Moreno Glacier

The Pre-Congress Technical Tour started in El Calafate (State of Santa Cruz), where we spent two days.  El Calafate is located on the largest lake in Argentina.  This is a glacial lake and the Moreno Glacier is at the head of the lake.  The Moreno Glacier face is 300 feet high and it was calving at the late summer date we visited.  This glacier is part of the third largest ice field in the world – only behind Antartica & Greenland.

The 1st thing I noticed riding in from the airport was a roadside fence line contrast.  There was a lot of what I thought was a grey shrub and very little in the surrounding pastures.  This area was heavily sheeped in the past.  Checked with the tour guide and found out what I thought was a shrub was a large bushy Senecio.  The two main grasses were Fescue and Stipa.

Third Day we traveled by bus to Rio Gallegos to catch a flight to Tierra del Fuego area.  We visited an area at the east end of Lake Argentino, where grazing/wood cutting exposed the silty/sandy glacial soils to wind erosion.  They planted Elymus and shrubs to hold the soils in place.  It is still grazed to some extent.  We also observed heavy grazing and light grazing on a riparian/wetland areas (mallines = meadows where water is near the surface).  We visited a sheep Experimental area, where they were testing different grazing systems.  I learned about ground shrubs that the sheep use.  I casually looked at the plant they were talking about and initially thought it was a healthy cryptogam, however it did have a woody stem to it.  Inside the exclosure it was about 5/6 inches high after 5 years of rest.

Ushuaia Tierra del Fuego

We landed in Ushuaia that calls itself “City at the end of the world”, approximately 69 degrees south.  Of the Equator.  City is located on the Beagle Channel, where Charles Darwin spent time.  Historically, the Native Americans did not wear clothes; only seal skin capes (brrr!!).  The women were responsible for collecting mollusks.  They smeared seal fat on their bodies to insulate against the frigid waters.  The biggest resource problem I saw in Tierra del Fuego Park involved beaver.  They were introduced in 1943 to enhance the fur trade.  The fur trade fizzled and now they are running wild with no natural predators.  They are doing a job on standing trees as well as flooding out trees in the bottom lands.  Great Sea food in Ushuaia.

Rosario International Rangeland Congress

Rosario is a city of under one million people, in the State of Santa Fe.  It is a very clean city.  There are several stray dogs per block that laze about and help keep the food items out of the gutters.  The dogs don’t belong to anybody, but are fed, watered and tolerated by folks.  The only time I saw folks harass the dogs was when shop keepers shooed them out of the entrance to stores, when they flopped down.  It was amazing to see so many nice condition Ford Falcons from the 1960s driving around.  The Parana River flows through Rosario and fish dinners were great.

The IRC had about 500 people in attendance from 40 to 50 countries.  There were close to 700 papers/posters, 3 pre-congress tours and 3 mid-congress tours.  Proceedings will soon be available on the IRC website at http://www.rangelandcongress.com/ and available at catrina.batello@fao.org at no cost.  The next Congress will be in India in 2015.  I went on the Parana River Island mid-congress tour.  The river was in a low flood stage and most of the cattle had already been ferried across the river to areas west of Rosario.  However, it was interesting to see cows and calves swimming and some cows swimming and grazing at the same time.  I asked about caimans bothering the cattle (local ones are smaller than those in Amazon Basin) – wild pigs are more of a threat to calves.  The ranchers burn their lands by themselves every Fall, so they can find the cattle as the vegetation gets pretty thick and high otherwise.  The Poster I found the most interesting was from Israel, using goats to create fire breaks around forested areas.  I asked about the bad fire in their forest last summer and he said the crown fire dropped to the ground when it hit the goat grazed area. 


Iguazu Waterfalls Bariloche.

I made two trips after the congress.  Iguazu Waterfalls (state of Misiones) are way up north on the Brazil Argentina border.  One of the falls is horse shoe shaped at the head of a large canyon called the “Devils Throat.”  There are several falls on the Brazilian side and a long series of falls on the Argentina side.  This waterfall was as spectacular as Niagra Falls and Victoria Falls and the geology of the long canyon and rim made this a huge area.

The next trip was to Bariloche (State of Rio Negro) about midway in the country, but on the west side near the Andes mountain range.  The area was settled by Swiss and German pioneers. The architecture with the Andes backdrop made one feel that they might have been in the Alps.  Cathederal Hill is probably the only major ski area in South America.  The rainfall in Bariloche was 1,000 millimeters near the mountains and going 35 km east and it drops to 500 mm and continues drop to about 250 mm as you go east until the Atlantic Ocean influence raises the rainfall.  I was able to visit the San Ramon Estancia (Ranch) in the 500 mm zone and there were many conifers growing, all introduced from Europe, Australia and North America.  The Ranch produced cattle that grazed the meadows and sheep that grazed the upland steppe.  The ranch was 250,000 hectares in size.  The entire ranch and buildings were burned in a wildfire in 1996 and the manager said vegetation was still recovering in certain areas.  I thought I was standing in grass in a rest pasture, but was I wrong.  It was a Stipa that came half way up my calf and neither cattle nor sheep will graze it.  The trees that they were selectively logging had ½ to ¾ inch growth rings present from about 40 year old trees.  The introduced Red Deer grow some tremendous racks 2 ½ to3 feet wide with 16 points on some.
Beautiful, unpalatable stipa
 Argentina has the highest per capita meat consumption in the world – 75 kg/person.  We ate well and a high protein diet it was great!!