Preserving Working Ranches

Grasslands are one of the most unique and endangered ecosystems in British Columbia.  The purpose of grassland stewardship is to restore and enhance the landscape in order to ensure long-term health and viability of the land.  Stewardship promotes the implementation of land-use practices that benefit the natural values of the land.  Such practices are responsible for maintaining and restoring the grassland and associated habitats to as natural a state as possible. 

In British Columbia, 95 percent of the grasslands are grazed by cattle.  The link between ranching and healthy grasslands is therefore very strong. Strong, economically viable ranches are protectors of large, intact tracts of grasslands, preventing subdivision into rural acreages, which usually have detrimental impacts on grassland health, habitat values, and the ability of neighbouring ranches to continue to function. Never have the ranching and ‘environmentalist’ communities had so much in common.

Appropriate grazing has the potential to maintain or improve the ecological health of grasslands; high impact grazing practices can cause severe deterioration of grassland health. Common ground amongst all of those with an interest in grassland biodiversity, conservation and stewardship has never been more critical. 

Grazing can positively impact rangelands by stimulating plant growth, helping to maintain optimal leaf area, enhancing nutritive value, removing excess litter, accelerating nutrient cycling and manipulating botanical composition. In carefully managed conditions grazing can be used as a control mechanism for invasive and undesirable species.

Ecologically based grazing management increases the number of different plant species on rangeland, and creates a mosaic of different habitats that enhance biodiversity. A properly designed grazing system can also be used to provide zones of reduced fine fuel to assist in controlling wildfires. After the summer of 2003, ‘fireproofing’ in BC’s dry valley edges is a major issue for many communities.

Ecologically based grazing management is economically viable, and in fact, assures the long-term availability of inexpensive forage for livestock, without which a ranch cannot survive. 

There are two main types of ranches that employ land management strategies to maintain and restore grasslands: working ranches and biodiversity ranches The goal of a biodiversity ranch is to maintain biological diversity of the land and to use livestock as a management tool, whereas the goal of a working ranch is to uphold economic viability by recognizing that it is linked to a healthy ecosystem Both types of ranch develop long-term stewardship goals and the owners are encouraged to conserve natural, historical, scenic and scientific values by developing land management plans that may involve the following stewardship practices: rotational grazing, development and placement of riparian exclosures, alternative watering systems and a water supply for new irrigation systems.

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