Courtney White, of Quivira Coalition.

Could you describe a sustainable ranch and its operations or refer me to a source that can? I’m picturing small operations where cattle are grass-fed, nothing is overgrazed, and no public land is used — is this correct or are the most sustainable ranches these days large, efficient operations?    — Tyler Sipresse, Las Vegas, Nev.

I was skeptical at first. Then I visited a well-managed ranch and saw that progressive ranch management exists. This ranch bunched its cattle together, as opposed to dispersing them as usual, and kept them on the move so that any particular spot on the ranch received rest for 50 out of 52 weeks a year.

It’s called controlling the timing, intensity, and frequency of cattle impact on the land. It goes by other names as well, including planned grazing, short-duration grazing, timed grazing, management-intensive grazing, and so on. You can read all about it in a number of publications, including one of our own entitled The New Ranch Handbook: A Guide to Restoring Western Rangelands by Nathan Sayre. Another source is the Stockman Grass Farmer, a newspaper published out of Mississippi.

The principles of the “New Ranch,” as we call it, work on all scales. Sam Montoya runs nearly 200 head of cattle on 92 acres of irrigated ground divided into 33 pastures, where he moves his cattle every day. The CS Ranch runs nearly 4,000 head (before the drought) on 100,000 acres, employing the same concept. The Empire Ranch, near Tucson, Ariz., is extraordinarily well-managed — and it’s 100 percent public land. Land ownership doesn’t matter — what matters is operating within ecological limitations. Too bad we can’t get off-road vehicle enthusiasts to play “within nature’s model.”

Is there a silver bullet for management of cattle, especially in dry times? No. Every ranch is different; every landscape is different. But the bottom line is this: When ranchers manage their animals according to the natural principles of migratory ungulate behavior, everybody wins.

Wouldn’t land and water be better conserved and compassion better practiced if raising livestock were abolished?   — Barbara Warner, Lebanon, Ky.

Wouldn’t land and water be better conserved if we were abolished? A cow consumes 20 gallons of water a day, on average. How many gallons does the average American household consume? Five times as much? And how much of that goes down the drain? And what about all that pavement we put down? Or the cats and dogs we raise on the edges of open space? What do you think is the No. 1 killer of songbirds in America — Mexican pesticides? Hint: It has whiskers.

I’m sorry, but when people start talking about “abolishing” things, I get itchy all over. Who gets to make those sorts of decisions? Not me, I hope. We’re not talking about slavery here, after all. We’re talking about cows. They are not immoral animals. They just eat, fart, and poop. They can be managed sustainably, or not. Besides, ranching is a legitimate subset of American culture — as important to American society and history as any other subculture. To blithely wave a hand and say “off with their heads” is irresponsible and, frankly, rather spooky. Reform grazing management, yes. Abolish a people and a culture, no.

If you’re looking for something to rail against, try the feedlot system. That’s the source of much of the problem with beef in this country. Cows should be eating grass, not corn, and certainly not parts of other cows. They’re herbivores, for God’s sake, not carnivores. Then consider all the oil products that go into feedlot production. And the water. And the waste created. And the terrible working conditions. And on and on.

Read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser for a wake-up call on feedlots.

As for compassion, it’s sorely lacking on a number of fronts. The lack of compassion certain ranchers feel toward predators is disturbing. The lack of compassion certain environmental activists feel toward fellow human beings is equally disturbing. The response of the Quivira Coalition has been to create a neutral place that people can look, learn, and listen to one another. Compassion begins with knowledge and a handshake.

I understand that 70 percent of all U.S. water is used for irrigation. Can we expect “water wars” in the near future?    — Tom Lincoln, Medford, Mass.

The “water wars” have already begun. Here in New Mexico, which is enduring its fourth year of drought, battle lines have been formed and some skirmishing has already taken place. The lines are drawn between urban and rural populations. Cities are growing and need more water. Agricultural interests, Indian pueblos, and other “first in time” users have the water and don’t want to let it go. Cities have the money and the votes. This fight could get bloody. And the last time I looked, we were not creating more water. We’re not creating more land either, but that’s another story.

The widening gulf between urban and rural in the West is one of the real tragedies in all of this. They should be allies, especially if you care about where your food comes from, the quality of the water you drink, the viability of the wildlife you watch, the condition of the public land you hike in, and the maintenance of the open space we all treasure. To drive wedges between urban and rural, as so many activists on both sides do, is to ensure that greed and ignorance triumph in the long run (and the short run too), while the things we all treasure become increasingly fragmented, scarce, and unhealthy.

Should we be growing water-guzzling rice in the Central Valley of California? Probably not. But do we need another water-guzzling apartment complex? We need to live within limitations and tighten the belt of our desires. We already have far more than we need. Why can’t we find a way to live sustainably in our native and adopted landscapes? And I mean rancher and urban-dweller alike. That may sound Pollyanna-ish, but what’s the alternative? More of the same?

I’ve made five trips to southern Arizona in recent years and have not seen what you describe. Given the profit motive and the greed prevalent in our culture, I don’t see your project working on anything but a superficial level. I can’t see truly sustainable grazing being profitable enough to make it work.    — Dave Mack, Pauline, S.C.

My blood boils every time I drive from Santa Fe to Albuquerque. That’s because there is a stretch of country halfway along that has been nuked by cattle. I mean, there ain’t nothing growing. And guess what? There’s a herd of cattle there, plus a few horses. My wife and I think they must be a new breed of dirt-eating cows, perhaps genetically engineered by one of our land-grant colleges. It’s amazing.

The simple truth is, not many ranches in the Southwest practice progressive ranch management. The number is increasing, but slowly. I said this in print once, a few years ago, and got into big trouble with the traditional ranching community, who swears that everything is fine. I’m sure the “managers” of the naked land along the highway between Santa Fe and Albuquerque would also take umbrage at the implication that they were not the “original environmentalists.” But that’s what I run into all the time. It makes me angry because I have seen enough well-managed ranches now to know that there is a choice. Overgrazing is not a point of view, to paraphrase “Dilbert.” It exists; it can be, and has repeatedly been, measured; and it can be corrected. But punching the lights out of the ranching community is no longer an alternative either. Anger isn’t the answer. At the same time, those ranchers who would rather fight than switch will continue to do so. And good luck to them.

You don’t see much well-managed ranching for two reasons. One, you have to know where to look. Next time you visit southern Arizona, go visit the Empire Ranch, near Sonoita. Tell John and Mac Donaldson that you read about them in Grist Magazine. You’ll be amazed by what you see there.

Second, you don’t know what you’re looking at. I don’t mean to be rude, and I certainly fell into this category myself when I started in this business, but we live in a culture that does not do a good job of “reading” the vocabulary of healthy land. Anti-grazing activists have done a very good job of educating us to the sins of overgrazing, and good for them, but I’ll bet $100 that most people would not know how to define “health” in the landscape — other than the absence of cattle. The truth is, we’re illiterate when reading a landscape. That’s the fault of a number of people and organizations, including the professional range-management community. But the time has come to learn the language of healthy land. It’s something Aldo Leopold urged us to do all those years ago.

As to profitability, that’s another can of worms. The joke goes like this: “How do you make a small fortune in ranching? Start with a large fortune.”

The economics of ranching suck. Better cattle management has increased profits for many ranchers, but they are still swimming upstream against a beef commodity tide that grows stronger by the day (just wait ’til China starts producing beef for export — don’t laugh, it’s coming!). Many ranchers are exploring how to find “conservation value” on their ranches — hunting, bed and breakfasts, bird watching, and so forth. Some are trying to figure out how to get paid for producing “ecological services” to cities, such as fresh and abundant water. It’s all very complicated and somewhat depressing. But the point is this: Profit is not a dirty word. It is no more “dirty” for the agricultural producer on public land than the profit generated by hiking, river rafting, and other forms of recreation. But it has to make a profit by working within nature’s limits. And the irony is, some ranchers are way ahead of city-dwelling environmentalists on this score.

I see on your organization’s website that your range management plan is designed to mimic the grazing patterns of bison. Why not just get rid of the cattle, bring in the bison, and turn them loose?    — Jay Schlegel, Ann Arbor, Mich.

I love bison. I want to see them roaming the range too. But where are you going to do that? These wide-ranging wild animals need space, and until Kansas is depopulated, that’s a problem. Space is shrinking on a daily basis in the West. Do you know that in Colorado an acre of land gets converted to development every hour? You could try to confine bison to public land, but remember that bison aren’t big on forests, and BLM land is often fragmented with state and private land. And if bison aren’t given enough room to roam, they become like huge, shaggy, fat cattle wallowing in riparian areas and overgrazing the land. There are 17 bison on 1,000 acres of tribal land near Albuquerque that have decimated the range to the point that if they weren’t fed hay every day, they’d die.

It is important for people to understand that while half of the West is public land, half is private and thus susceptible to disposal the old fashioned way — sale to developers. Much of this private land is more productive for animals, wild and tame, because it is lower in elevation, better-watered, and has more fertile soil for a wider diversity of plants. And the vast majority of this private land today is controlled by ranchers, many of whom need public land to make their business “profitable.” By one estimate, over 100 million acres of private land in the West is owned by public land permittees. If you drive the public-land rancher off, please consider the consequences. They’re huge.

And as I understand it, the economics of bison are worse than cattle.

My point: We have hard choices. The real world requires trade-offs. But I think we have found a way to create win-wins for ranchers and environmentalists — if it’s not too late.

How can you support the grazing of large, non-native animals, such as cattle and sheep, in the western U.S.? The California state park system has removed cattle and all non-native animals from public land. It’s well past time that the federal government did the same thing, instead of subsidizing them.    — Jeff Hoffman, San Francisco, Calif.

Let’s ask the question this way: Which is more “non-native” in the West, a bunch of cattle being pushed gently across a grassland by a herder, or Phoenix, Ariz.? (I grew up there, and thus have a right to pick on it.) Is there any living creature more “non-native” in North America than the human being? Hell, we’ve only been here for 13,000 years and look at what we have done to the place! And most of that happened in the last 150 years.

Or look at this question from the perspective of an overgrazed plant. Does it give a damn whether the animal that bit it was native or not? Rabbits can overgraze. So can bison. Is it alright if a herd of elk overgraze a meadow simply because they’re “native”? And “native” to what? Elk were primarily plains animals until they were pushed into the forested mountains by pressure from us “non-natives.” I seriously hope people do not argue that “native” animals never overgraze. Go visit Kenya or India if you do.

This question of “native” versus “non-native” misses the point (and I get it all the time). The real issue should be: Are the animals being allowed to behave in a “native” manner or not? Seventeen “wild” bison in a big cage is not nature’s idea of “natural” behavior. A 1,000-head herd of “domestic” cattle being herded daily through the mountains can closely mimic the “natural” migratory behavior of wild ungulates. Or look at it this way: If a plant is healthy and growing, does it matter if the animals grazing it lightly are a “native” or not?

You can argue that you would rather see bison than cows on the land. That’s fine, of course, but be honest and say it’s a value you possess. Don’t masquerade it as ecology. This is the thing that drives me nuts about environmentalists. You don’t want cows in wilderness areas? Just say so! But don’t talk to me about ecological damage or what is “native” and “non-native.” Be honest.

As for the subsidy issue, has anyone considered the subsidy that ranchers make to people who live in cities? Ranch land today is far more valuable for its real estate potential as development than as agricultural production. Therefore, when a rancher decides to sell, who can afford to buy? If we care about wildlife and open space, how are we going to save this important, and expensive, land? The government ain’t in the land-buying business much anymore. The Nature Conservancy can’t buy it all (not by a long shot). Is the Sierra Club going to buy this land? No. It’s going to go into the hands of developers. So, it seems to me that helping the rancher not sell his land by helping him stay in business is a far cheaper subsidy of open space, no?

If we value something, we need to roll up our sleeves and help, not simply issue bigoted broadsides from the hearts of big cities.

Your answer to the question about the president was disconcerting. Can you honestly pretend that it doesn’t matter who is our next president? Even that it doesn’t matter “for what you do”?    — Abbey Waterhouse, Madison, Wis.

I’m a Democrat. I voted for Clinton; I’ll vote for Kerry. But Clinton did jack for the West. If he had created one more national monument, we were all going to scream (please read my first round of answers for an elucidation of this point). Of course Bush and his administration are doing lots of objectionable things, but I think you missed my point. The system is broken on many levels. Our political system is busted. We have an economic system that still rewards exploitation of natural resources over the healing of nature. Out here in the West, the federal lands system is broken. Gridlock rules. The environmental movement is stuck in a deep rut. Ranching is dying. The only system that is working well is the “wealth industry” — primarily the subdivision industry.

Displacing Bush would stop things from getting worse, I hope. But it doesn’t fix things at a fundamental level, which is where real change needs to happen. In my opinion, democracy is in real trouble in this country. So, we’re trying something different out here in the “radical center” where formerly bitter enemies are talking and making progress together. Maybe that’s idealistic on my part, but it’s working. Maybe it’s not the “pragmatic” strategy that some require, but it’s the only hope I can see to reinvent things. And you do it by mending fences.

It seems to me that sustainable ranching could be encouraged and promoted not just in the West but in the supermarket. Is your organization working to develop consumer awareness and influence consumer choice? How do you envision such a system?    — D.M. Anderson, St. Louis, Mo.

There are lots of efforts going on to link healthy food to good stewardship and help the family rancher stay on the land. I’m personally involved with a brand new effort to get grass-fed food produced and marketed in the Southwest. If you don’t know much about the human, animal, and land health benefits of grass-fed food (as opposed to the feedlot system), check out Jo Robinson’s Eat Wild website.

Eating locally is another way to help. There’s an international “slow food” movement coming into its own. I encourage people to learn more about it.

Is cost-benefit analysis being done on specific aspects of the activities of your group?   — John Vautour, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I’m in the nonprofit business. No one should do a cost-benefit analysis of any nonprofit — it would make all executive directors start drinking heavily. After all, as I tell people, you can’t take the “non” out of “nonprofit.” It’s a real struggle.

By the way, a rancher I know stood up at a meeting and said, “Hell, I’ve been in the nonprofit business all my life …”

Do you work with organizations that buy ranches and allow the ranches to continue but with environmental concepts included? If you don’t, why not? Why don’t the varied environmental groups combine and harness their energy into larger, more effective groups? Territorial?    — Jerry Broadbent, Bucoda, Wash.

There are a few groups that “get it” when it comes to the real challenges confronting the West (and not just the issue of oil and gas development) — like how to find meaningful and ecologically sustainable ways for rural people to earn a paycheck. But there are not many groups, and most of them are small organizations. The Nature Conservancy mostly “gets it,” but it is a very insular organization, in my experience, and its track record with ranchers is controversial, to say the least.

As for buying ranches, see my above comments. There just isn’t enough money to buy all the land that needs to be bought. It makes much more sense to help the landowners stay in business, and do a better job.

Do you support or apply permaculture techniques with the ranchers you work with?    — Jamie Limbach, San Francisco, Calif.

I don’t know very much about permaculture, to be honest. Perhaps it’s because, as a friend of mine sarcastically puts it, permaculture is “gardening for rich people.” That’s not fair, of course, but I can’t think of a single rancher that employs it.

What do you make of the news in the Daily Grist last week about the rainforest destruction in Brazil being largely the result of cattle farming? Does news like this surprise or anger you at all?    — Haley Yewden, Minneapolis, Minn.

Of course, clearing a rainforest for cattle, no matter how well-managed, is not exactly working within “nature’s model” of herbivory. As a friend of mine likes to say about the human itch to dam every creek and river. “Rivers don’t like to be lakes, and in time they’ll be rivers again.” Same goes with the rainforest. The question is, I guess, what damage will we do in the meantime? But I’m far from an expert on rainforests, and since I try to confine my opinions to topics I know something about (a difficult self-restraint, I’ll admit), I’ll leave it at that.

I will say this by way of summation: Challenge your paradigms. I know that sounds like a bumper sticker, but it’s the truth. Things are changing quickly. New ideas, new technologies, and new knowledge are shaping the West rapidly, with consequences for the rest of the nation. There’s an entrepreneurial spirit out here that is hugely exciting and hopeful. It is working outside the usual “boxes” — outside the old paradigms of conservation, ranching, public-land management, politics, and economics. It may, in fact, be revolutionary.

Will it work? I hope so, but it’s just taking shape. As Chiang Kai-shek said in 1975 when asked about the effects of the French Revolution: “Too early to tell yet.”