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Proof of progress

Date posted: March 24, 2008

Three stewardship examples from leaseholder experience

Improved management of invasive weeds. Leaseholders around Grande Prairie are controlling the spread of invasive weed species on grazing leases by using herbicides and handpicking, as well as insisting that oil companies accessing the land steam clean their equipment prior to entering their leases. "That has kept the weed populations in check on these lands," says Debbie Stover. "These producers also change their grazing management practices so that weeds don't have a chance to become established."

Drought lessons guide grazing standards. Many times, range managers deal with less than ideal conditions. For example, during the drought from 1999 to 2001, ranchers in the Medicine Hat area, an area that was particularly hard hit, had to make some very difficult decisions on destocking, culling and selling parts of their herds and shipping animals out of province to keep from overgrazing and damaging the rangelands.

"These decisions are a result of the experience in carrying capacity and balancing demand with production that past range managers learned in the dustbowl of the 20s and 30s," says Barry Adams.

"Even when the rains returned in 2002, many ranchers maintained conservative stocking rates to ensure range recovery. In 2002, ranges were stocked at 50 percent the normal stocking rate and a full 25 percent of the land base received another year of rest and weren't grazed at all.

"The current range community has a consciousness about carrying capacity that goes back 70 or 80 years," he says. "There is a respect for maintaining light to moderate stocking rates that is anchored in what happened in the 20s and 30s."

Local stewardship provides guidance. There is multiple users on lease lands, including recreational and industrial users. "We are immediately available to help educate the other users to leave the land in as good a state as possible," says Wayne Heller. "We can also provide critical on-site supervision of industrial projects and intervene if necessary to reduce the environmental impacts of industry."

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