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Views from the front line

Date posted: March 24, 2008

Long-time rancher perspectives on sustainability from yesterday and today

"The lease system is a structure that has been managed to maintain as much native range as possible and the importance of native range to the landscape cannot be understated. On our ranch, it has given us the opportunity to manage at a higher level and afforded us the scale to make improvements such as water development, cross fencing and other range projects."

"Provincial rangeland specialists have been and are instrumental in providing assistance with rangeland management and improvement by way of education opportunities and extension. Two heads are always better than one."
– Larry Sears, Flying E Ranche, southwestern Alberta

"Grazing lease policies leave a local steward in place to manage and look after the land. We can supervise the activity on the land to ensure the other users don't disrupt or destroy the value of the land. In a broad sense, the lessee helps protect all things on the land beyond the grass we graze, including the aesthetic, wildlife and recreational values."

"Key to the lease system is the relationship between the province and the rancher which has been cultivated over many generations. It's much like working with a neighbour. You can get more work done working with a neighbour than working by yourself."
– Wayne Heller, Heller Ranching Company, southeastern Alberta

"The native grasslands today are managed under a grazing regime similar to the grazing regime of the buffalo herds in times past. As far as sustainability goes, how can you do better than that?"

"Somebody else enjoying the land in no way diminishes my enjoyment of it but just as there is a carrying capacity for livestock, there is a carrying capacity for people and recreational activity. Private lease tenure provides for very knowledgeable ground resource management by the rancher that could not be matched with government resources or staff. That round-the-clock management helps protect this land."
– Rick Burton, Burke Creek Ranch, southwestern Alberta

"Animal and plant ecosystems don't exist independently. There's a big interrelationship. Grasslands require grazing to remain healthy, particularly in the more brittle environments. The grazing lease system is a win-win situation where the rancher gets something out of it but so does the landholder, being the province.

"There's a public desire to maintain these public landscapes and ecosystems. I'm strong on the ecological goods and services these undisturbed landscapes provide. Watershed functioning, for example, is a pretty significant benefit for Alberta as a whole. Native grazing lands do a better job of that than anything else we can do with the land."
– Bill Newton, rancher, southeastern Alberta

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