Livestock Impacts for Management of Reclaimed Land at Navajo Mine: The Decision-Making Process
The Navajo Mine Grazing Management Program (GMP), begun in 1991 to establish that livestock grazing on reclaimed land is sustainable, uses holistic management on approximately 2,083 ha of a former surface coal mine to plan for final liability release and return of the land to the Navajo Nation, and to minimize the potential for post-release liability. A Management Team comprised of local, Navajo Nation, and Federal government officials, company staff, technical advisors, and community members contributed to the formation of a holistic goal articulating shared values and a desire for sustainable grazing, with major decisions tested against the goal.
Biodiversity as an organizing principle in agroecosystem management: Case studies of holistic resource management practitioners in the USA
Twenty-five farmers and ranchers using Holistic Resource Management (HRM) were interviewed on the role of biodiversity in the sustainability of their operations. Since HRM began influencing their decisions, all of the interviewees reported positive changes in some of the ecosystem processes on their farms or ranches, 95% perceived increases in biodiversity (particularly with respect to plants), 80% perceived increase in profits from their land, and 91% reported improvements in their quality of life because of changes in their time budgets.
Cell Grazing – The First 10 Years in Australia
This paper tracks the progress of Cell Grazing in Australia from 1990 when it was first taught, to 1999, from 2 perspectives. Cell Grazing was found to boost business profitability and improve soil as well as to increase rainfall use efficiency and, usually, biodiversity. Described as a high-level, time-control grazing method, Cell Grazing differs from a variety of rotational grazing systems.
Improved Grazing Management Increases Terrestrial Invertebrate Inputs That Feed Trout in Wyoming Rangeland Streams
This paper shows that proper grazing management in riparian areas can have a beneficial impact on trout populations. The biomass of trout in areas under a type of grazing called “high-density short-duration” (HDSD) were twice that of those in similar areas under “season-long (SL)” grazing. The hypothesis is that increased riparian vegetation observed via HDSD grazing leads to greater insect populations (“terrestrial invertebrates”) that fall or crawl into the rivers and become a protein source (“input”) for trout consumption. Measurements are made of the riparian vegetation and trout biomass.
Linking Ecosystem Health Indicators and Collaborative Management: A Systematic Framework to Evaluate Ecological and Social Outcomes
Although collaborative management has gained popularity across the United States as a means of addressing the sustainability of mixed-ownership landscapes and resolving persistent conflicts in public lands management, it has nonetheless generated skepticism because frameworks to assess on-the-ground outcomes are poorly developed or altogether lacking. The holistic ecosystem health indicator, a promising framework for evaluating the outcomes of collaborative processes, uses ecological, social, and interactive indicators to monitor conditions over time.
From the Ground Up: Holistic Management and Grassroots Rural Adaptation to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy across Western Canada
This study examines the impacts of and adaptive responses of producers in western Canada to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which has adversely affected farmers and rural communities around the world. In particular, it explores how holistic management (HM), with its combined focus on environmental, social, and economic sustainability, might mitigate the effects of BSE.
Adaptation and change in Queensland’s rangelands: Cell grazing as an emerging ideology of pastoral-ecology
This paper discusses the adaption of “cell grazing” in Australia, which it describes as an “ecologically integrated paradigm.” From the Abstract: “It is argued that cell grazing is, at present, a marginal activity that requires an ideological and cultural shift, as well as an investment in new infrastructure; however, current cell grazing activities may also demonstrate that beef grazing has the potential to be both economically and environmentally sustainable.”
Steps toward Sustainable Ranching: An Emergy Evaluation of Conventional and Holistic Management in Chiapas, Mexico
Members of a holistic ranching ‘‘club” in the Frailesca region of Chiapas, Mexico have moved away from decades of conventional management by eliminating the use of burns and agrochemicals believed to decrease the biodiversity and forest cover of ranch lands, and by implementing sophisticated systems of rotational grazing and diversifying the use of trees. Holistic ranches were found to have double the “emergy” (embodied-energy or “energy memory”) sustainability index values of conventional ranches. The results from this study show that productivity can be maintained as the sustainability of rural dairy ranches is increased, and that local knowledge and understanding of the surrounding ecosystem can drive positive environmental change in production systems.
Desertification and livestock grazing: The roles of sedentarization, mobility and rest
This paper suggests that livestock may be a solution to the problem of land degradation in arid and semiarid rangeland ecosystems. It investigates the history of desertification around the world and finds that of the many contributing factors, the singular commonality was the “prevalence of partial or total rest.”
Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie
This paper finds that adaptive management using multi-paddock grazing produced superior outcomes on vegetative cover and soil. In a comparison of four grazing schemes: light continuous (LC), heavy continuous (HC), multi-paddock with adaptive management (MP), ungrazed areas – exclusion (EX), the MP lots were better in almost every measure. Factors measured included soil organic matter (SOM), water infiltration rate, water volumetric percentage, cation exchange capacity, fungal/bacterial ratio, percent bare ground and standing biomass of desirable and undesirable plants.
