Subject: ** Changing Management for Changing Times ** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comments: Understanding, cooperation, and collaborative goal setting--hand in hand with hard work and paying attention--are fundamental to Holistic Resource Management. Jack and Teresa Southworth understand these principles and practice them on their southern Oregon ranch. It took a generation or two to get beyond the conflict and confrontation, and the Southworth's don't believe all the rough sledding is behind them even now. Their story, as printed in 1991 in the HRM newsletter (and repeated on at least one DG network recently), comes to us compliments of Shannon Quinsey as a follow-up to "Changing Perspectives in the American West." Shannon keeps tabs on another DG network called "HRMNET." If interested contact S.Quinsey:R05F11D51A. 3 pages. Dave. -------========X========------- Eco-Watch 10/6/92 CHANGING MANAGEMENT FOR CHANGING TIMES LONG-TERM SURVIVAL DOESN'T GO TO THE STRONGEST ORGANISMS, BUT THE MOST ADAPTIVE By Jack Southworth [This article appeared in the HRM Newsletter, Spring 1991] We have been grazing cattle on public lands in eastern Oregon for a hundred years and while we are grazing the same land now as when my grandfather started ranching, nothing is the same. When my grandfather started grazing there were no roads, no loggers, no recreationists and little knowledge of how to keep grass plants healthy. He used the land he leased from the Forest Service mainly as a place to park the cow herd while the haying was done. When my folks took over in the late '40's they made a lot of improvements: creek bottoms that had been dust bowls sodded over and the creeks ran all summer. My Dad's opinion was that progress was made in spite of the Forest Service rangers who were always nitpicking about stubble height or a stray cow and seemed blind to the improvements that had been made over the years. In my Dad's time the roads were built, the logging really accelerated and hunters started coming over from Portland. But all these things were viewed as something separate from grazing. In the late '70's when my wife Teresa and I took over management of the ranch, my attitudes about public land and the Forest Service weren't much different from those of my parents and grandparents. But times were different! There were more people in the state and they were better educated, had more mobility and leisure time, and an even greater need for camping, fishing, listening to a creek or reading a book in the shade of a willow. I asked myself if it was better for society that our ranch produce a few thousand pounds of beef or was it better that it produce high quality camping trips along a willow-lined stream running clear, cool water? Now I would say it is important that it do both. And it is important that it do both exceedingly well. In the early '80's the Forest Service ranger on our district said we had to do something about the decline in riparian shrubs along Camp Creek. I went along with his suggestion that we try grazing the forest allotment in the fall and see if this would decrease the pressure on the riparian areas. It worked like a charm. As a kind of public relations gesture I decided to go to the various deer camps in the allotment where the cattle were grazing and explain to the deer hunters what we were doing and why, and I naturally assumed they'd say, "Oh, those are your cattle. Say, those calves sure look good. Hey, how about a cup of coffee." In reality, my reception was something less than friendly: "What are the cattle doing out there? Don't you know you're supposed to have them off here before October?" Some of them had been hunting there for over 25 years and this was the first time they'd ever encountered any cattle to speak of and it wasn't adding to the pleasure of their hunting trip. I learned from that. I finally realized what it meant to be grazing on public lands. That there were other users that had just as much right to use those lands as I did and that if I interfered with their use of public lands, I was at fault. It was about that time that I first learned about Holistic Resource Management and discovered a process by which I could reconcile my use of the land with the deer hunters, the fishermen, the campers and others. It has since helped us deal with increasingly complex land use issues. How have we changed? Well, first of all, we've defined the whole we're managing and that includes both the public and deeded land we run cattle on. To be sustainable, all of the land has to be healthy and productive. We can't neglect or sacrifice one part of the whole without hurting all of it. That is a big change from my grandfather's time. In those days anything you rented you cared less about than what you owned. We now have a three part goal: Quality of Life: To enable the people who work on the ranch to achieve satisfaction, self-worth and a sense of well-being from being involved with the ranching operation, and to strive beyond the ranch to improve the community in which we live. Production: To achieve a profit through livestock that are bred, born and grown on the land we care for. Future Landscape: We'll have a dense stand of perennial grass and some shrubs. The forested areas will have a healthy, productive stand of trees. The creeks will be winding, lined with willow and stocked with beaver. The water table will be high. Anyone passing through it will find it a pleasure to look at. To achieve this goal we have to make sure that the sun's energy is well-utilized by growing, healthy plants; that the rain and snow that fall on the ranch stay as long as possible in the soil; that the minerals in the plants and soil are constantly cycling; and that biological succession is high and contains a diversity of plants and animals. Nowhere do we say that we want heavy yearlings or a high percentage calf crop. What we're finding is that good performing cattle are an unavoidable byproduct of striving to achieve that three-part goal. We used to think our long-term success was based on finding the right breed of cattle, buying the right bull, using growth implants. While those things make a difference, they can easily be negative rather than positive to the whole in their impact. Additionally, we're finding it easier to make a 50% or even 100% improvement in range production than it is to make a 10% increase in livestock production. One of the biggest changes is in our relationship with the Forest Service. Instead of being adversaries we now realize we are each other's customer. They are our source of high-quality summer grazing. We are a renter of one of their resources. And our attitude is that we don't want to just be a customer, we want to be their best customer. We want the Forest Service personnel to look forward to and not dread working with us. We both have the common goal of trying to do what's best for the land. Our goals for the land, while different, are similar enough to allow us to work in the same direction. Now instead of sitting down together and deciding in what order we are going to graze the different Forest Service allotments the first thing we talk about are what problems are keeping us from achieving our goals. Then we talk about the various tools we have at hand that we could use to bring about a solution. It might have to do with time of use, or length of use or non-use, or fencing. What is interesting is that by the time we've figured out some ideas that may solve the problems of overgrazing or too much use in the riparian areas, the order in which we graze the pastures has taken care of itself. We don't sit down together to figure out a grazing plan, we sit down to solve problems. The grazing plan is just a byproduct of that problem solving. There is only one certainty and that is we don't graze the Forest allotments during deer season. We communicate by phone or letter before, during and after the grazing season. We decide on what we're going to do and then as new ideas or problems come along we make necessary changes. After the grazing season we write to each other about what went wrong and what went right and what we can do next year to take advantage of the successes and diminish the failures. In our communications there are a lot more "How abouts?" and "What ifs?" and a lot less "You'd better do this, now!" and "The hell I will!" My main fear is that our ability to manage cattle well may not be able to keep up with the rigidity of Forest Service regulations. As allowable stubble heights get taller and allowable shrub use gets smaller it is going to be imperative that we control the cattle extremely well. I'm not yet sure how we're going to do that. Fencing off every riparian area would be almost as offensive to the environmental community as the problem of overgrazing itself. Having more riders more of the time may have some potential, but I'm not certain of even a full-time rider's effectiveness in steep country. At any rate, that'll be the first avenue we'll explore. The reason I express these fears is that I don't want to give the impression our outfit has everything figured out and everything is great. I fully expect that grazing cattle on public lands will become more difficult - it should! - and I fully expect our ranch to come up with ways to accomplish that grazing in the desired manner. I do not expect the answer to achieving understanding on the use of public lands to come from the U.S. Congress, the Sierra Club, or the Oregon Cattlemen's Association. I think some of the answers will come quietly from small groups of people sitting around diningroom tables in hundred-year-old ranch houses. I think some of the answers will come from two or three people sitting together and talking on the edge of a creek bank. Answers that are derived in that sort of manner don't solve the problems of the West. But they do a remarkable job of solving the problems of a watershed, a pasture or even a single overbrowsed willow. Allan Savory says that overgrazing occurs one plant at a time. I think effective, long-term solutions will reverse the damage at the same rate. Through goal setting, collaboration and communication we can have healthy, productive public lands that sustain a multitude of uses. One thing the future is not going to be is easy. For me it is much more pleasant to sit on a swather in late July than to sit a the desk and write a letter to the Forest Service. But those kinds of changes have to be made. I don't have a sympathetic ear for those permittees seeking easy, care-free summer grazing on public lands. Those days are simply over. Long-term survival does not go to the strongest organisms, but to the most adaptive. My hope is that the people who graze livestock on public lands will have the intelligence and ability to adapt to the changing needs and demands that our nation is putting on its public lands Jack and Teresa Southworth ranch near Seneca, Oregon.