Diverse Management Strategies Produce Similar Ecological Outcomes on Ranches in Western Great Plains: Social-Ecological Assessment

Wilmer, Hailey; Augustine, David J.; Derner, Justin D.; Fernández‐Giménez, María E.; Briske, David D.; Roche, Leslie M.; Tate, Kenneth W.; Miller, Kevin E.

doi:10.1016/j.rama.2017.08.001

Cited by 50 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Savory's claims that stocking rate is not an important determinant of plant community, and that grazing systems can universally sequester carbon, have also been challenged and evidence raised to the contrary [16,30]. Moreover, continuous grazing is generally found to equal or outperform rotational grazing in terms of plant and animal production, meaning that a range of viable grazing strategies likely exist [14,31]. Meta-analysis suggests that HM has no consistent positive effects on plant basal cover, biomass or animal production when compared to season-long continuous grazing, and may function better in high-moisture environments than the "brittle" ones for which Savory advocates it [32].…”

Section: Holistic Management Principles Practices and Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Meta-analysis suggests that HM has no consistent positive effects on plant basal cover, biomass or animal production when compared to season-long continuous grazing, and may function better in high-moisture environments than the "brittle" ones for which Savory advocates it [32]. In fact, operation type may have a stronger effect on rangeland plant composition than grazing management strategy or planning style [31]. Adaptive rotation sometimes improves aboveground biomass and yield, but inappropriate combinations of adaptations-i.e., poor decision-making-deteriorates rangeland further than non-adaptive strategies [33].…”

Section: Holistic Management Principles Practices and Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adoption of HM practices has been estimated at 5-10% across a range of jurisdictions [34]. Ranchers choose grazing management strategies that they believe will bring them toward their long-term goals with lowest risk and highest flexibility [31]. The perception of the usefulness of any practice is affected by the learning experience, the social characteristics and circumstances of the individual, and the features of the practice itself [62].…”

Section: Fluidity and Adoption Of The Adaptive Grazing Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Holistic Management and Adaptive Grazing: A Trainers’ View

Mann

Sherren

2018

Sustainability

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Holistic Management (HM) is a grazing practice that typically uses high-intensity rotation of animals through many paddocks, continually adapted through planning and monitoring. Despite widespread disagreement about the environmental and production benefits of HM, researchers from both sides of that debate seem to agree that its emphasis on goal-setting, complexity, adaptivity and strategic decision-making are valuable. These ideas are shared by systems thinking, which has long been foundational in agroecology and recognized as a valuable tool for dealing with agricultural complexity. The transmission of such skills is thus important to understand. Here, twenty-five Canadian and American adaptive grazing trainers were interviewed to learn more about how they teach such systems thinking, and how they reflect upon their trainees as learners and potential adopters. Every trainer considered decision-making to be a major component of their lessons. That training was described as tackling both the "paradigm" level-changing the way participants see the world, themselves or their farm-and the "concept/skill" level. Paradigm shifts were perceived as the biggest challenge for participants. Trainers had difficulty estimating adoption rates because there was little consensus on what constituted an HM-practitioner: to what level must one adopt the practices? We conclude that: (1) trainers' emphasis on paradigms and decision-making confirms that HM is systems thinking in practice; (2) the planning and decision-making components of HM are distinct from the grazing methods; and (3) HM is a fluid and heterogeneous concept that is difficult to define and evaluate.

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Section: Holistic Management Principles Practices and Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Holistic Management Principles Practices and Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fluidity and Adoption Of The Adaptive Grazing Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Holistic Management and Adaptive Grazing: A Trainers’ View

Mann

Sherren

2018

Sustainability

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“…There are two potential explanations for the inconsistency between expected and empirically assessed outcomes. First, until very recently [16,17], few studies evaluated the ecological outcomes of actual management decisions at a management-relevant scale-the ranch or pastoral grazing territory. Second, existing studies conducted at a management scale do not isolate the effects of specific practices [18,19], but rather evaluate the aggregate effects of the whole suite of practices implemented on a particular ranch on multiple indicators (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using an integrated social-ecological analysis to detect effects of household herding practices on indicators of rangeland resilience in Mongolia

Fernández‐Giménez

Allington

Angerer

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Temperate grasslands, including those of northern Eurasia, are among the most imperiled ecosystems on Earth. Eighty percent of Mongolia's land area is rangeland, where interacting climate, land-use and changes in governance threaten the sustainability of Mongolia's rangelands and pastoral culture. Particularly concerning are the potential ecological impacts of changing pastoral grazing practices-namely declining use of grazing reserves and pastoral mobility. However, like other grazing practices globally, there have been no empirical studies to evaluate the effects of specific Mongolian grazing practices on ecological function at a management scale. We collected data on the grazing practices of 130 pastoral households across four ecological zones and sampled ecological conditions in their winter pastures. We used a novel social-ecological analysis process to (1) develop integrated, holistic indicators of ecological function using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and (2) assess the effects of individual grazing practices on these indicators using statistical matching to control for confounding management and contextual factors. We identified two latent factors related to ecological and pastoral resilience: Factor 1 represents resource retention and soil stability and Factor 2 represents species richness and functional diversity. Using these two factors as response variables, we found that the values of both resilience factors were higher in pastures where households made fall or winter otor migrations or set aside grazing reserves. This study provides the first management-scale empirical test of the ecological response to specific grazing practices in Mongolia, using an approach that can be applied in other rangeland systems. Our findings highlight the importance to ecological and pastoral resilience of supporting traditional pastoral practices of mobility and grazing reserves, while also controlling stocking densities, increasing rangeland monitoring, and ensuring equitable access to state-designated emergency grazing reserves at local, regional, and national levels.

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“…Ranchers have a number of grazing and ranch system options available to help address this variability, including stocking rate and grazing system selection. Stocking rates are relatively inflexible in North American ranch operations (Wilmer et al 2018), but have a well-documented influence on rangeland vegetation species composition and production (Derner et al 2008), wildlife habitat (Augustine et al 2010, and other ecological processes that directly affect ranch economic returns, financial viability and biodiversity (Dunn et al 2010;Irisarri et al 2019). Grazing strategy selection reflects rancher cultures and family goals, as well as livestock handling traditions and infrastructure development across extensive landscapes (Bracy Knight et al 2011;Roche et al 2015;Wilmer and Fernández-Giménez 2015), labor inputs, and drought mitigation needs for beef production (Derner and Augustine 2016) though the ecological benefits of some grazing strategies may not extend to all rangeland systems (Briske et al 2011;Roche et al 2015).…”

Section: Ranching Social-ecological Context In the Western Great Plainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing for the middle: rancher care ethics under uncertainty on Western Great Plains rangelands

et al. 2019

Self Cite

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Ranchers and pastoralists worldwide manage and depend upon resources from rangelands (which support indigenous vegetation with the potential for grazing) across Earth's terrestrial surface. In the Great Plains of North America rangeland ecology has increasingly recognized the importance of managing rangeland vegetation heterogeneity to address conservation and production goals. This paradigm, however, has limited application for ranchers as they manage extensive beef production operations under high levels of social-ecological complexity and uncertainty. We draw on the ethics of care theoretical framework to explore how ranchers choose management actions. We used modified grounded theory analysis of repeated interviews with ranchers to (1) compare rancher decision-making under relatively certain and uncertain conditions and (2) describe a typology of practices used to prioritize and choose management actions that maintain effective stewardship of these often multi-generational ranches. We contrast traditional decision-making frameworks with those described by interviewees when high levels of environmental and market uncertainty or ecological complexity led ranchers toward use of care-based, flexible and relational frameworks for decision-making. Ranchers facing complexity and uncertainty often sought "middle-ground" strategies to balance multiple, conflicting responsibilities in rangeland social-ecological systems. For example, ranchers' care-based decision-making leads to conservative stocking approaches to "manage for the middle," e.g. to limit risk under uncertain weather and forage availability conditions. Efforts to promote heterogeneity-based rangeland management for biodiversity conservation through the restoration of patch burn grazing and prairie dog conservation will require increased valuation of ranchers' care work.

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Diverse Management Strategies Produce Similar Ecological Outcomes on Ranches in Western Great Plains: Social-Ecological Assessment

Cited by 50 publications

References 64 publications

Holistic Management and Adaptive Grazing: A Trainers’ View

Holistic Management and Adaptive Grazing: A Trainers’ View

Using an integrated social-ecological analysis to detect effects of household herding practices on indicators of rangeland resilience in Mongolia

Managing for the middle: rancher care ethics under uncertainty on Western Great Plains rangelands

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