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Grassland Management by the
Nature Conservancy
Tom Collazo1
The Nature Conservancy, for those of you who don't know, is a national and international
non-profit conservation organization whose mission is to preserve plants, animals, and natural
communities that represent the diversity of life on earth, by protecting the lands and waters they
need to survive. We accomplish this mission in a variety of ways, including land acquisition,
cooperative partnerships with public and private land owners, and activities to strengthen the
ability of local communities to manage and conserve natural elements. Just as we've heard
about ranchers evolving in their perception of what their role is, or their relationship to natural
systems, TNC has evolved over the years, initially as an organization that went out and bought
lands and set them aside as nature preserves, and I think that as we learn our business, we take
a broader ecosystem approach and we realize that we can't, nor should we, own all of the
lands necessary to maintain naturally functioning systems such as grasslands.
Our programs in Arizona can be characterized as both intensive and extensive. I think an
example of the extensive type of work we do in the field is the sort of thing that Peter Warren, as
a Field Representative of TNC, does such as consulting with different groups such as Malpai
Borderlands Group or with Forest Service, or with other public and private land owners. This kind
of activity could include commenting on land use plans, making nominations for special
management area designations, gathering data and providing input to the data management
systems that are maintained by the Arizona Game and Fish Department and others as the basis
for decision making and ecological management and research projects, again both with public
and private land owners around the state.
On the intensive side is the management of areas where we have a direct land ownership
interest and a direct management responsibility. We manage a system of nature preserves
around the state. We have 12 preserves that include two areas which are primary grassland
management areas: Aravaipa Canyon and the Muleshoe Ranch Cooperative Management Area
where the Conservancy has played a role by acquiring base property that has been associated
with BLM and USFS grazing leases. These are areas which have significant biological resources,
where the highest quality biological assets are native fish communities. Aravaipa is distinct in
having seven native fish endemic to the southwest. Muleshoe streams support 5 native fish as
well as riparian habitats and breeding areas for zone tailed and black hawks and several other
riparian dependant species.
We feel that protecting these rare aquatic elements includes the grasslands and watersheds
that are an integral part of the systems that maintain the riparian areas.
This got us into the
grassland management business. I think that what these areas represent in demonstrating the
role a non-profit like the Conservancy can play in grassland management is that we are able to
work cooperatively with our public land management partners and, as I think you are going to
hear later this morning in the case of the planning process we've just wrapped up at Muleshoe
Ranch, also involving neighboring land owners and ranchers. We took an approach where the
1
Arizona Nature Conservancy, Tucson Al.
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highest value part of the natural system can be incorporated into a planning process and where,
because the Conservancy does not have the imperative to turn a profit from livestock grazing
operations, we can bring other resources in to improve ecosystem conditions.
Once the ecological conditions and functions are restored and functioning properly, we can
then make available forage accessible to other land managers and livestock operators in the
larger ecosystems of which these are a part, to leverage protection of the larger ecosystem or
the larger watershed by cooperative involvement. This is essentially the grass banking concept
pioneered at the Gray Ranch by the Animas Foundation and the Malpai Group. We took a look
at it and thought it was a pretty good model. Interestingly enough, while these areas had very
high biological values, they also had some pretty heavily impacted rangelands where shrub
encroachment was a serious concern.
What we brought to the planning process was our approach which is to try to find ways for
the natural ecological process to be used to restore natural grassland community structure. We
developed ecological models which try to predict how the different processes of grazing and fire
can move the grassland communities from the current condition with a lot of shrub
encroachment into the desired future condition where amount and species composition of
perennial grasses would be improved and shrub canopy would be reduced. The benefit would be
in terms of returning the land to more productive use as well as creating a functioning watershed
that would benefit, in the long run, the restoration and long-term maintenance of the riparian
communities.
I think our time is getting kind of short, so a couple of other things that I would like to
mention, on the extensive side we have a number of voluntary private conservation programs
going with different land owners around the state where through conservation easements we can
help ranchers achieve their goals of staying on the land, ensuring that grassland landscapes are
not subdivided in the future and in some cases providing some necessary cash flow to get
rangeland improvement programs going. We also do a lot of work in the area of education and
outreach. We work cooperatively with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum to produce the Desert
Speaks television program where we are able to communicate what's going on -- all the exciting
projects you have been hearing about in terms of partnerships and working together to restore
fire landscapes. Communicating stories about the need for, and achievements of , a
cooperative approach to ecosystem conservation out to a much broader audience around the
country so people can understand the issues is another role that we play.
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