Read past On the Bookshelf columns:

Read White's columns:

Conservation that pays: A Colorado couple ends the debate on grazing by proving that ranchers can have their grass and graze it too -- and turn a profit.

Instinctual grazing: USU professor believes, and a Montana rancher proves, that animals can be taught to forage in a way to improve the range.

Replenishing land and people: For nearly three decades, a biologist has worked the rangelands of the Southwest, and cultivated the caregivers of that land in the process.

Think like a creek: A retired Forest Service biologist uses the natural meanderings of waterways to help restore the ecological health of the land.

"A Working Wilderness: A Call for a Land Health Movement" urges conservationists to abandon the unrealistic goal of "pristine" and instead focus on working to create healty ecosystems. Part II.

"A Working Wilderness: A Call for a Land Health Movement" discusses new standards for determining rangeland viability and what activities enhance it. Part I.

Rotational grazing: A rancher uses fire and rotational grazing to erase decades of abuse and restore the native landscape on his New Mexico ranch.

more

Overgrazing, clear cutting, mining, oil and gas exploration, and poorly designed and maintained roads have damaged, degraded and worn out our landscape.

Environmentalists, ranchers, loggers, federal land managers, elected officials, and private citizens in the American West have been locked in a bitter struggle with each other. The health and diversity of the West’s open spaces seemed destined to lose.

Now comes a story from the American West, where cowboys and environmentalists crossed enemy lines to work together and save the land they love. It is a lesson for anyone who hopes to truly solve environmental problems.

Courtney White went to ranches and wilderness areas in the West to learn first hand the challenges, goals and visions of the people working the land.

He tried to find an answer to the conundrum of why environmentalists seemed to persist in efforts to stop grazing on public lands. In most cases the elimination of grazing results in selling the land to developers---what then of stewardship, restoration and local food production?

Several challenges are identified in the conflict and shared love of the land: declining economics of ranching; increasing demands of environmentalists and recreationalists on public lands; presence of wildlife; possibility of endangered species; and growing frustration with bureaucratic Forest Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The chapters in this book are about relationships---among people, between people and land, among ecological processes—and their resilience. Ranchers have learned new ways to graze cattle in harmony with nature and still turn a profit.

Environmentalists have learned that a well-managed ranch can contribute as much to nature as protected land. Now all sides are committed to stop fighting and start spreading their vision of the “New Ranch.” The big challenge that remains is finding the financial means to do the work as the ownership patterns continue to change.

Barbara Theroux is the manager of Fact & Fiction, now part of the Bookstore at the University of Montana.

Island Press
May 2008
248 pages,
6" x 9"
ISBN: 9781597261746