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[Editor's note: This column on The Rowe Mesa Grassbank is Part
One of a two-part series. In November 2004, The Conservation
Fund transferred the Rowe Mesa Grassbank to The Quivira
Coalition]
In 1997, author and conservation leader
Bill deBuys had an idea - and a problem.
The idea was a novel one: to get natural
fire back on the land using the tool of a grassbank
-- to be located on a stretch of national forest land
on top of Rowe Mesa, forty miles east of Santa Fe, New
Mexico.
His inspiration came from the Gray Ranch,
part of the Malpai Borderlands Group in southwestern
New Mexico, which offered its grass to ranchers in exchange
for conservation easements on their home property.
DeBuys' idea was to exchange the grass of
an unstocked federal grazing allotment for restoration
action -- thinning and prescribed burning -- on the
home allotment. Cattle would come to the grassbank for
a period of time, thus reducing conflicts between livestock
and restoration work.
It was a quid pro quo: an exchange of forage
for conservation. Everyone won, deBuys thought. Ranchers
could have their grass and eat it too, the Forest Service
had a bottleneck removed for restoration activities,
and conservationists received, well, conservation.
The problem was his idea almost never became
a reality. Opponents lined up like at a shooting gallery.
Forest Guardians, an environmental group dedicated to
ending public lands ranching, objected officially.
The New Mexico Cattlegrowers' Association
protested too. Even the lieutenant governor of New Mexico
at the time opposed the concept and worked aggressively,
according to deBuys, to derail the project. Many others
were lukewarm to the idea, including the region's mainstream
environmental organizations.
The only partners that stood steadfastly
with deBuys were the U.S. Forest Service, the Northern
New Mexico Stockman's Association, and the Cooperative
Extension Service.
It was touch-and-go until both the conservative
Albuquerque Journal and the liberal Santa Fe New Mexican
editorialized in favor of the grassbank The opposition
faded away, but the challenges were just beginning.
Why was there so much opposition to an idea
that seemed to benefit all sides? Part of the answer
can be found in the standard "taking sides"
over livestock grazing on public land -- what some have
called the "conflict industry." Part of it was
resistance to the idea of a national environmental group
-- The Conservation Fund in this case -- getting into
the ranching business.
"A grassbank is
But a lot of the opposition was due to the
novelty of the grassbank idea. It was new, it was different,
it was collaborative, it was proactive, and it solved
problems.
Fortunately, deBuys, with strong support
from The Conservation Fund and the other grassbank partners,
prevailed over the skeptics. Eight years later, the
grassbank has not only proved itself to be a useful
tool, but it has, in turn, been an inspiration for other
organizations and other grassbanks around the West.
What Is a grassbank?
A grassbank is defined as a physical place,
as well as a voluntary collaborative process, where
forage is exchanged for one or more conservation benefits
on neighboring or associated lands.
How that exchange takes place and what specific
conservation benefits accrue is determined by the grassbank
participants. On the Rowe Mesa Grassbank, the exchange
is grass for prescribed fire and thinning. Other grassbanks
leverage grass into protecting wildlife habitat, restoring
watersheds, and maintaining "weed-free" zones.
Whatever the benefit, both sides of the exchange must
be strong for a grassbank to work properly.
Grassbanks are not fancy "swing"
allotments, however -- where cattle are traditionally
moved in order to provide relief from overgrazing, drought
or other management complications. Instead, they provide
proactive, and long-lasting, conservation benefit to
land and people.
But grassbanks are more than just grass
and trees. On Rowe Mesa, for example, Bill deBuys set
three overarching goals for the Grassbank, in his words:
(1) To improve the
ecological health of public grazing lands for the
benefit of all creatures dependent on them -- from
juncos to jackrabbits and curlews to cowboys;
(2) To strengthen the
economic and environmental foundation of northern
New Mexico's ranching tradition, which is arguably
the oldest in the nation; and
(3) To show that ranchers,
conservationists, and agency personnel can work together
for the good of the land and the people who depend
on it.
Grassbanks are a powerful tool because they
can integrate environmental and economic goals, operate
in harmony with local social and cultural traditions,
encourage shared ownership, and meet environmental justice
concerns. Best of all, perhaps, is a grassbank's flexibility.
"Our goal is to be consistently and continually
adaptive," wrote deBuys. "If the land is changing,
so must we. Our fundamental challenge is shared equally
by both the conservation and ranching communities: how
to respond to the constant dynamism of the lands upon
which we all depend."
How It Began
With his partners and goals in place, deBuys
and his colleagues at the Conservation Fund raised the
funds necessary to purchase 240 acres of deeded land
on top of Rowe Mesa. The property came with a federal
grazing permit for 36,000 acres of national forest land
-- and no cattle.
Rather than stock the ranch with Conservation
Fund cattle (they didn't own any), the Conservation
Fund and its partners, including the Forest Service,
crafted an agreement under which the grass of the Valle
Grande allotment would be offered as a "bank"
to national forest permittees in northern New Mexico
in exchange for restoration work on the home ground
-- principally forest thinning and prescribed fire.
In northern New Mexico, as in most western
forests, historic fire suppression and overgrazing by
livestock has led to dense, unhealthy forest conditions,
often resulting in catastrophic wildfires.
One researcher has determined that due to
rapid tree growth we are losing upland grass cover at
a rate of over percent per year to tree encroachment.
This declining productivity has led to conflicts between
cattle, wildlife, recreational users, and restoration
activities.
DeBuys thought a grassbank would relieve
some of this stress by encouraging those who wish to
improve the health of large landscapes to work constructively
with the people who occupy and use those landscapes.
"In the case of northern New Mexico, we
believe that the best hope for ecologically sound, fire-wise
stewardship of public land lies within the ranching
community," deBuys wrote. "If ranchers, working
with environmentalists, become advocates for prescribed
burns, wildfires, and related treatments, political
leaders and public agencies will respond accordingly
-- to the lasting benefit of the land."
Grassbanks are also a living exercise in
the "radical center" -- where people of diverse
backgrounds can meet and work effectively together.
"The familiar conflicts
– Bill deBuys,
Author and conservationist
"For ranchers," deBuys wrote, "this
means accepting a higher standard of environmental performance;
for environmentalists, it means approaching conservation
by working constructively with the people who occupy
and use the land; for bureaucrats, it means focusing
on producing tangible results, not merely defending
procedure, and for all it means the sharing of authority
and responsibility."
How It Works
After surviving the usual rocky start, Bill
and his partners found a formula that works.
From their experience, for the Rowe Mesa
Grassbank to run smoothly, all five "cylinders"
of its engine need to function properly: the Steering
Committee; strong participation from permittees; ranch
operations; finances; and the exchange.
Steering Committee. The
Rowe Mesa Grassbank has four partners on its steering
committee: the U.S. Forest Service, the Northern New
Mexico Stockman's Association, the New Mexico Cooperative
Extension Service, and The Quivira Coalition (which
has replaced the Conservation Fund).
Although various roles for each partner
are spelled out in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU),
the principal job of the committee is to review applications
to the Grassbank from grazing associations around the
region and to make recommendations to the supervisor
of the Santa Fe National Forest.
Participation. Without
clients -- the ranchers -- there would be no Grassbank.
Fortunately, support has been very strong. To apply,
groups of grazing permittees work with their local USFS
Ranger District.
To be ranked high, an application should:
-
have a detailed restoration plan in
place;
-
demonstrate significant ecological
need;
-
have the NEPA requirements completed,
and;
-
have a viable monitoring plan. If accepted,
a grazing group's cattle (the Grassbank tries to
take the whole bunch) will likely graze on the Grassbank
for one or more seasons.
Running the Ranch. When
the cattle come to the Grassbank they are watched over
by a full-time ranch manager. In addition to the usual
duties of fixing fence and repairing the 30-miles of
pipeline (there's only one well!), he must herd the
animals through multiple pastures, work with the permittees
when they visit, implement an animal health program,
coordinate activities with the Forest Service, help
monitor, and take many, many notes.
Finances. Since the Grassbank
does not own any cattle, it loses THE source of financial
capital that keeps other ranches in business. To boot,
the grazing fees paid by the grazing associations to
the Forest Service stay in the home districts.
All of this makes the finances of running
a Grassbank a first-class challenge. The answer, so
far, has been to seek the assistance of various foundations
and government agencies. But grants are not forever.
Which means for the model to be sustainable over the
long run, grassbank's must create a new financial model
too.
The Exchange. The heart
of the Grassbank idea is the quid pro quo, or exchange,
of forage for tangible conservation benefit. In other
grassbanks around the West, the conservation benefit
has included conservation easements, prairie dog habitat
restoration, forest thinning, riparian recovery and
weed control. In the case of the Rowe Mesa Grassbank,
the principle objective is the restoration of fire to
the landscape.
Grassbanks are an experiment -- but one
that that holds huge potential for everyone. Bill deBuys
sums it up this way:
"The familiar conflicts of range management
will recede to the background and the radical center
will have prevailed when individuals and organizations
from across the political spectrum jointly commit themselves
to accepting and encouraging the continuous renewal
of the land."
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Courtney White writes