Fall Cattle Journal 2025 | Editorial
There are a lot of words frequently used to describe ranch management practices and ideas. Conservation. Sustainability. Holistic. Regenerative. Diversity. Resilience. Adaptability. They all sound positive, but what do they mean on a practical level?
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise,” conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote in his 1949 book, A Sand County Almanac.
Leopold expressed his belief that humans as individuals and communities had a moral responsibility to the natural world. I’m not sure if anyone feels this more deeply than ranchers. We spend our days caring for animals who depend on us for feed, water and shelter. I’ve never met a rancher who considered his or her own comfort ahead of the needs of our animals.
But it goes beyond the livestock that put money in the bank. Ranchers love the land. We spend our lives working within the cycles of nature across landscapes, many of which retain a wildness unknown in other areas. Ground that is not “fit for anything else” is the perfect place for cattle, sheep or goats to graze and grow and generate top quality protein to feed our families and communities. Grasslands are also the perfect place for birds and wild animals and native plants to thrive.
Ranchers depend on things completely out of our control for our livelihood. Calves are born. Rain falls. Grass grows. Season follows season. We recognize our humble position and are awed by “all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small” –from billowing thunderheads to burrowing earthworms, blizzards to bacteria, big bluestem to birdsong.
Aldo Leopold questioned agricultural and recreational practices of his time. They led to the extinction of the passenger pigeon and were bringing about a decline in native plant and wildlife species and the loss of topsoil on farmland. Humans were changing the landscape, and Leopold saw negative consequences. He espoused the idea of a “land ethic” to describe the relationship he believed humans should have with the earth.
“The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land..,” wrote Leopold. “In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”
The ranch families whose stories fill these pages embody this concept on a daily basis. Sometimes that means investing in infrastructure such as fence and water development to better utilize grazing lands. Sometimes that means enhancing habitat and infrastructure to benefit wildlife along with domestic livestock. Sometimes it means planting trees or cover crops. Always it comes down to recognizing that we humans are just one part of the whole ecosystem and standing in awe of the myriad life forms and natural processes that surround us from sunrise to sunset, dusk to dawn.
Ranchers define words like “sustainability” throughout lives dedicated to selfless stewardship of the land, recognizing that it is the responsibility of each generation to pass these gifts on to the next generation. Ranchers embody resilience as they embrace a lifetime of learning to adapt to whatever curveball Nature throws next.
Ranching is conservation.
