Is ecologically sensitive ranching possible? The
Sierra Club’s Santa Fe, N.M., chapter and the Quivira Coalition
think it is, and on June 14 they will host a free workshop to show
that a ranch can be both a successful livestock business and a
landscape of healthy native grasses, riparian zones, streams and
wildlife. “The goal,” says workshop organizer Courtney White, “is
to get ranchers to become the environmentalists they keep saying
they are.” The meeting includes Ray Powell Jr., New Mexico state
land commissioner; Dan Dagget, author of Beyond the Rangeland
Conflict: Toward a West That Works; Jim Winder, a New Mexico cattle
rancher and ecologist; Kris Havsted, scientist and head of the
Jornada Experimental Range near Las Cruces, N.M.; and Frank Hayes,
a Forest Service district ranger in Arizona. The group meets at the
Santa Fe Unitarian Church; White hopes ranchers, environmentalists
and land managers will attend. For more information, call White at
505/982-5502.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Eco-ranching – really?.
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