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We hope you have a wonderful end to 2024 and a terrific 2025.

Here is what we’ve been reading, watching and writing about over the past week…

Videos

Against the Herd

Almost a century of overgrazing has destroyed much of America’s public lands, but Cottonwood Ranch has discovered that cattle can actually be the key to restoring our rangelands. Now the Smith family must convince legislators that cows aren't always eco-villains, or they’re sure to lose their land.

Holistic planned grazing starts with this key insight: Plants NEED ANIMALS as much as ANIMALS NEED plants. This is because plants and plant-eating animals (herbivores) co-evolved over millions and millions of years until they became mutually-dependent (symbiotic).

PLANNED GRAZING is a part of a larger decision making process. It applies the insight that domestic and wild animal impact (grazing, browsing, weed and brush trampling, dung and urine fertilization, soil tilling, and more) benefits plant health IF it mimics natural patterns in terms of animal numbers, grazing frequency, and 'rest' (recovery) periods between grazings.

Without animal impact, forests lose biodiversity, support fewer animals, and become fire-prone.

When animal impact does not mimic nature, it can harm plants.

The rangeland, forestry, and academic bureaucracies, long since captured by the agro-industrial complex, are hostile to planned grazing because it threatens the business model of the industrial food complex which controls them.

More here ->

Keyline 101: Desert Grassland Restoration

This 18-minute video explains how we used P.A. Yeomans’ Keyline concepts to improve water function at our family’s 32,000-acre Circle Ranch in the Chihuahuan high-desert grasslands of far-West Texas.

The Keyline explanation is followed by a discussion of water harvesting and the role of drones.

More here ->

What We've Been Reading

Some articles of note:

Generation regeneration: ‘a new era of farming talent’

Last year, a third more tenancies were awarded to new entrants than 10 years ago. Many are breaking the rules, and promising to restore not just soil health, but the value of the industry

Financial TimesSarah Langford

Physical Evidence of Pleistocene Extinctions: A New Component Added

In an effort to evaluate the validity of the most often discussed mammalian extinction models, sixteen site areas in northwest Oregon were examined. These are predominately archaeological and/or paleontological sites, although several locations

Academia.eduAlison Stenger

Getting the Jump on Ducks

Late-season jump-shooting on moving water

Shooting Sportsman MagazineNoah Davis

And that’s it - as always thank you..

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