Procrustes Stretched
"intuition and imagination and intelligence"
Stewards of the Land: Ranchers on the Front Lines of Conservation
“When you view land as a community and you’re part of that community, that’s when you can start to really love and cherish the land. And I want to be part of the community. I want to be part of this web of life that’s going on out there. I don’t want to conquer the land. I want to be part of the land.” Bill Sproul, Kansas Rancher
Wow! Powerful. Stewards of the land, that's what we are, or should be, must be. In the USA, public land leaseholders are renters. Conservationists are fellow citizens seeking to get our fellow citizens, and our government (local, county, state, and federal), to look at land in our nation as a resource that could be, and should be restored if needed, nurtured, and protected as a national, natural resource. There are of course conflicting views on how to use and/or preserve and protect our lands. Yes, they are our lands.
"grazing is necessary to maintain the health of the rangeland"
New Guidance aiding Stewardship of Our Lands from the Biden/Harris Administration
By Shawn Regan
Mr. Regan is vice president of research at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Mont.
Each fall and winter, thousands of elk from Yellowstone National Park leave behind the deep snows of the park’s harsh and unforgiving high country and descend to surrounding ranch lands to feed on native grasses...this food is often on private land, there is no guarantee that elk will continue to have access to it, or even that the native grasses will remain.
...
In 2021, we struck a deal with a rancher to install wildlife-friendly fencing, eradicate invasive cheatgrass and promote the growth of native plants. The habitat lease restored 500 acres of prime elk habitat in Montana’s Paradise Valley and was celebrated by environmentalists and ranchers alike. These leases pay landowners to create, maintain or improve landscapes in ways that benefit wildlife.
Now, under new guidance issued by the Biden administration last month, the Bureau of Land Management, the nation’s largest manager of public lands, with some 245 million acres under its control, is set to begin leasing land to conservation and other groups to carry out similar habitat restoration work. This is a major turn for an agency that was required by law to give priority to extractive industries, leasing lands for grazing, logging, mining and energy development — but not for conservation.
For more than a century, narrowly defined “use it or lose it” rules have required public land leaseholders to graze, log, mine or otherwise develop the land, or risk having their leases canceled...conservation on public lands has been treated as something to be legislated, designated or regulated, rather than empowered as a legally valid lease.
“When you view land as a community and you’re part of that community, that’s when you can start to really love and cherish the land. And I want to be part of the community. I want to be part of this web of life that’s going on out there. I don’t want to conquer the land. I want to be part of the land.” Bill Sproul, Kansas Rancher
Wow! Powerful. Stewards of the land, that's what we are, or should be, must be. In the USA, public land leaseholders are renters. Conservationists are fellow citizens seeking to get our fellow citizens, and our government (local, county, state, and federal), to look at land in our nation as a resource that could be, and should be restored if needed, nurtured, and protected as a national, natural resource. There are of course conflicting views on how to use and/or preserve and protect our lands. Yes, they are our lands.
"grazing is necessary to maintain the health of the rangeland"
New Guidance aiding Stewardship of Our Lands from the Biden/Harris Administration
By Shawn Regan
Mr. Regan is vice president of research at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Mont.
Each fall and winter, thousands of elk from Yellowstone National Park leave behind the deep snows of the park’s harsh and unforgiving high country and descend to surrounding ranch lands to feed on native grasses...this food is often on private land, there is no guarantee that elk will continue to have access to it, or even that the native grasses will remain.
...
In 2021, we struck a deal with a rancher to install wildlife-friendly fencing, eradicate invasive cheatgrass and promote the growth of native plants. The habitat lease restored 500 acres of prime elk habitat in Montana’s Paradise Valley and was celebrated by environmentalists and ranchers alike. These leases pay landowners to create, maintain or improve landscapes in ways that benefit wildlife.
Now, under new guidance issued by the Biden administration last month, the Bureau of Land Management, the nation’s largest manager of public lands, with some 245 million acres under its control, is set to begin leasing land to conservation and other groups to carry out similar habitat restoration work. This is a major turn for an agency that was required by law to give priority to extractive industries, leasing lands for grazing, logging, mining and energy development — but not for conservation.
For more than a century, narrowly defined “use it or lose it” rules have required public land leaseholders to graze, log, mine or otherwise develop the land, or risk having their leases canceled...conservation on public lands has been treated as something to be legislated, designated or regulated, rather than empowered as a legally valid lease.
