Frasier's Philosophy

Rangelands, Volume 28, Number 6 (December 2006) Item Type text; Journal DOI 10.2458/azu_rangelands_v28i6_board Publisher Society for Range Management Journal Rangelands Rights Copyright © Society for Range Management. Download date 29/09/2021 13:46:17 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Version Final published version Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/640932 By Gary Frasier Frasier’s Philosophy It is generally acknowledged that the early settlers took from the land with their farming and ranching practices. Is this occurring today? Have we changed our range management philosophy? Are we “giving to the land” today or are we still “taking from the land”? Every day when you open the paper or hear the news there are various stories about man- aging the resources on our rangelands. The stories might be about increasing a ski area on public land, or drilling for oil and gas next to an exburban area, or controlling prairie dogs. There is frequently an adverse impact on the people living on or next to the affected areas. In most instances the stories could be rated as “taking from the land.” Today as you travel across the West and talk to the people who make their living from the land, you fi nd that most know that they must manage the land for long-term sustainability. Otherwise, they will soon be out of business. Ranchers are embracing the idea of rest rotation, controlling access to riparian areas, controlling noxious weeds, and other resource management tools. Would they have done it without being forced by “outsiders”? In some instances the answer is no. In other instances the answer is yes. Many of the managers of working ranches and rangelands have at least one college degree in some aspect of range or natural resource management. The pioneering members of the Society for Range Management did a good job of showing that proper range management was the way to go. The new managers of the land are truly devoted to “giving to the land.” Are we done? The answer is no. There is an increasing number of people who do not know that they are taking from the land or do not care. They are the owners of “ranchettes” or extended acreages next to our urban centers. These people for the most part derive their livelihood from jobs away from the land. They use the land for their recreation and “solitude.” We frequently see 2–6 large animals, usually horses, on land that cannot support one animal. These people buy feed and grain to keep their animals alive so they can use them a few times a year. The soil surface often ends up either bare or covered with unpalatable weeds. These people are abusing the land in a manner that can be rated as the worst that has ever been done. Do we hear about it in the local newspaper? In most instances the answer is no. Why not? Most of the time when you point out the problem, the response is, “It is my land and you have no right to impose upon what I should do.” Yet at the same time our working ranches are facing an onslaught of criticism for abusing the land. The theme of this issue is “giving to the land.” We have the tools for proper management. We need to pass this knowledge on to our neighbors who either don’t know how to take care of the land or don’t care. Let us give credit to the land managers who are taking care of the land, “giving to the land,” and let us work with the people who are still “taking from the land.” u 2 Rangelands Sustainability: Giving and Receiving The eyes of a starving child. By Thad Box ooking into the eyes of a starving child was a rare I’d seen pictures of children who looked like little skeletons gift I did not expect. His dull stare expanded my covered by parched rawhide—bellies enlarged, eyes sunken. concept of sustainability. I thought anew about I didn’t expect real children, looking as if they stepped from how land is used in different cultures, different those pictures, to be waiting in the shade of an acacia tree. Leconomic systems, different population densities. I had to I approached a little boy of about 6, the age of my well-fed reexamine the connection between people and land. son waiting back in Texas. I knew no language the boy could Some 40 years ago I was the range person on a United understand. Maybe he would understand my smile as an of- Nations Development Program team to Somalia. Our in- fer to help. He stood stoic, almost in a stupor. structions were to evaluate livestock production on the Horn Our eyes met. I knew then that my job in Africa was not of Africa following a major drought—a straightforward ag- about livestock. It was not about grass and cows. It was about ricultural mission. land and people who depend on it. My role was to apply car- I looked forward to the assignment. I had watched the rying-capacity concepts to balance people and the land. It drought of the 1950s destroy my family’s livelihood. I suf- was to keep the human habitat sustainable. fered from the devastating effects of 7 years of inadequate Soon after we arrived in Somalia, the rains came. The rainfall. One of America’s most severe modern droughts landscape turned green. Seeds sprouted. Herbaceous carpets turned me from an aspiring rancher into a schoolteacher. covered the land. New leaves appeared on shrubs. Milk fl ow I had appropriate academic degrees. I worked with some increased in lactating camels. Surviving goats and sheep shed of the best range people in America. I studied and conduct- dry hair. I had seen livestock regain life after hard winters in ed research on the effects—biological and economic—of Texas. I had never seen that occur in humans. drought on plants, wildlife, and domestic animals. I thought I watched the greening landscape renew vigor of people I was ready for Africa. whose language and culture were foreign to me. Human nu- I expected the dry, barren landscape, the blowing dust. I trition improved, beginning with camel’s milk, then supple- was shocked by dead cattle around drying water holes, their mented by plants and animals. People’s skin shed drought mummifi ed carcasses scattered like alien sculptures on a scales and became shiny. Adults regained a spring in their Martian landscape. I was totally unprepared for the children step. Children laughed once again. I witnessed a land–people at the fi rst nomad camp we visited. connection in one of its most basic forms. People lived off their animals which in turn lived off the land. We were sent to evaluate livestock. The real problem was This article has been peer reviewed. to determine what human populations could be sustained in December 2006 3 a simple, largely climatically controlled, system. Alternative- ly we could suggest more complex systems with social and economic modifi cations that might sustain increased human densities. Either way, it was a people carrying-capacity problem, not a range livestock exercise. I grew up in a simple system. I never went hungry as a child. But some of my Great Depression generation, espe- cially those living in cities, did not have enough to eat. We lived close to the land. But our system was more complex ec- onomically, politically, and socially than that of the Somalis. We raised corn, beans, fruit, and fresh vegetables. We kept chickens, hogs, sheep, goats, and cattle. We ate much of what we raised, sold our surplus, and raised a cash crop for money to buy those things we could not get directly from the land. As the Depression progressed, prices dropped, markets fal- tered. Industry could not provide jobs. Banks failed. The drought of the 1930s exacerbated economic condi- tions. Many people went hungry. Most of us on the land had enough to eat. We were money poor. Our system could not respond once the rains came. Where the spirit heals. Economic and political action brought the complex web of humans back into harmony with the land. People were re- ways to give to the land. And we must learn to recognize gifts moved from the land with make-work programs. They built from the land that may not be identifi ed with land in our own roads, dams, and infrastructure to usher in a wage-based sur- backyard. Our main goal may be to instill a land ethic in the vival system. In the process, human population density was billions of people whose urban lifestyles deny them contact reduced in rural areas and increased in towns and cities. with the land. Now, just a half century later, we have a new world order where rapid movement of goods and people allow a global Land Ethic, Our Gift to the Land market. We no longer depend on land immediately around Our real and lasting gift may be in our living a land ethic us for sustenance. I eat apples from trees in my backyard. I that insures healthy and sustainable communities, including also eat apples with little stickers that tell me they are from transferring our values to the next generation. Such other Washington State, New Zealand, Chile, or China. gifts of stewardship—proper management, control of harm- Children in industrialized nations may have access to nu- ful infl uences—are but subheadings of developing an ethic tritious food that provides healthy bodies, but those children for sustainability.

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