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Preface
1
Barbara Tellman and Diana Hadley2, Conference Coordinators
THE PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE
Grasslands in many parts of the Southwest and northern Mexico are facing serious threats from urbanization and subdivision development to spread of invasive plant species to conflicts over
grazing policy. The conference organizers wanted to get a wide variety of people together to discuss
the major problems facing grasslands in arid and semi-arid regions of the U.S. and Mexico and to
seek solutions to those problems. The need to resolve conflicts in non-confrontational ways was
stressed.
Target groups for participation included ranchers and other private landowners, non-profit
groups such as The Nature Conservancy, government agencies with responsibility for grassland
management, environmental advocates, economists, scientists, students, and others. The plan
was to offer a non-confrontational atmosphere in which people could freely discuss issues and
advantages and disadvantages of a whole range of solutions to common problems. The emphasis
was on practical, hands-on management methods, including spending considerable time in
grasslands managed under a variety of techniques.
More than 250 people attended some portion of the conference including: landowners and
ranchers from Arizona and New Mexico; county planning department staff: state agency
representatives from Arizona and new Mexico; representatives of the U.S. Forest Service, Natural
Resources Conservation Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land
Management, Agricultural Research Service; Tribal representatives from the Tohono O'odham
Nation, San Carlos Apache Tribe, and the Navajo Nation; non-profit group representatives from The
Nature Conservancy in several states, Trust for Public Lands (Santa Fe, NM), Real Estate
Conservation (Helena, MD, the Land Institute of Kansas, Southwest Center for Biological Diversity,
The Wildlands Project, Wildlife Damage Review, the National Audubon Society, and others;
academics, including wildlife biologists, economists, rangeland management experts, and others
from Arizona, New Mexico, California, Colorado, Texas, Utah, and Sonora, and students from New
Mexico, Colorado, Mexico and Arizona.
HOW THE CONFERENCE WAS ORGANIZED
The first day was devoted to understanding grasslands and grasslands issues. The conference
began with plenary talks to set a basis for understanding grasslands, or as one speaker preferred
"savannas." Concurrent sessions on major problem areas were: Wildlife, Tourism and Urbanization;
Fire Management and Grazing; Water Supply and Sustainability; Watersheds and Water Quality;
Wildlife Corridors; and Exotic Plant Species. Problems of grassland management on tribal lands
and on Mexican lands were another focus. Wes Jackson of the Land Institute of Kansas talked
about sustainability problems on grasslands.
1
Water Resources Research Center, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ.
2
Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona and the Audubon-Whittel
Research Ranch Foundation, Tucson AZ.
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The second day was spent looking at management of grasslands in Southern Arizona. One
group visited a publicly owned grassland, managed for grazing, riparian proteciton, and recreation.
A second group visited several privately owned ranches and learned about the history of the area
and threats to its continued use as a ranchland. A third group visited two privately owned ranches
with very different grazing styles and the Audubon-Whittel Research Ranch, where grazing was
eliminated 20 years ago. All three groups ended up at the Research Ranch for lunch prepared by
the Santa Cruz County Cowbelles, and for mini-workshops on paleontology, native plants,
mammals, snakes, insect research and other topics. Some participants joined a preconference
field trip to the Gray Ranch in southwestern New Mexico.
The third day was spent in sessions looking for solutions to problems identified on the first day.
Plenary speakers discussed new approaches to grazing policy and management. Major areas
explored in sessions were: Monitoring; Land Conservation Options (including conservation
easements, land trusts, tax law opportunities and zoning); Public and Private Land Management
Techniques; Cooperative Partnerships; Conflict Resolution: and Rangeland Reform.
The final day again featured field trips to nearby grasslands in southern Arizona and northern
Sonora.
THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
This volume follows the general organization of the conference, although the agenda is not
exactly duplicated herein. Section One includes presentations on the subject of understanding
grasslands, including the keynote speeches. Section Two includes presentations on the subject of
managing grasslands. Section Three deals with identification of issues and problems facing
grasslands. Section Four looks at solutions to the identified problems. Posters and abstracts of
posters are integrated into the sections as appropriate.
Many of the sessions were in the form of panel discussions or informal presentations. Some of
these were difficult to reproduce in the proceedings format. Some of the articles in this
proceedings follow the traditional format of prepared papers, complete with technical graphics.
Others are summaries of sessions by recorders, or transcriptions from tape recordings of
presentations. The recorders and transcribers are clearly identified in those sections. Two major
sessions - Monitoring and Conflict Resolution - were summarized in detail by the organizers of those
sessions. The variety of formats reflects both the character and flavor of the symposium, and the
intention of the organizers to bring together individuals and groups who have only recently shown
strong interest in meaningful dialog.
THE GRASSLANDS BIBLIOGRAPHY
Available also to readers of the proceedings is a grasslands bibliography on computer disk. This
bibliography contains almost 4,000 references to works relating to grasslands in the arid and semiarid regions of the western United States. It was compiled by graduate students at Arizona State
University and the University of Arizona from a large number of sources. It contains the standard
technical works on grasslands research, as well as materials on the various subjects represented at
the conference such as conservation easements, conflict resolution, and even grasslands history
and poetry. The disk can be accessed by anyone with either DOS or Windows and does not require
any other program for use. It will be sent free to all conference participants. Others may order a
copy from the Tucson Audubon Society Gift Shop, 300 E. University Blvd., #11, Tucson AZ 85705.
Please enclose $7 per copy to cover reproduction, shipping and handling costs.
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