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Perspectives on and options for restoration in grazed landscapes

Hear from a variety of practitioners about various tools including grassbanks, permit donation, and others.

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Friday, 9:45am

The concept of ecological restoration in the context of historical and present-day cattle grazing is one which invites a variety of perspectives and does not, at this time, present a clear consensus in the conservation community, with agencies, or in the ranching community. This session will present the experiences of a number of organizations and agencies as they sought to achieve restoration of species, habitat and natural functions in grazed areas and working with ranchers and ranching communities – running the gamut from total cattle removal to achieving restoration goals while continuing grazing. Presenters will speak about general concepts for addressing grazing and natural resource restoration, as well as extensive case studies and practice from specific landscapes and experiments. In all cases, presenters have sought to address social and economic concerns as they sought restoration outcomes. Participants will have the opportunity to evaluate the ramifications of these decisions, and to consider how to adapt the methodology and approach of the presenters to fit their particular social, economic and ecological circumstances.

Speakers

Craig Bienz, Director, Sycan Marsh Preserve, The Nature Conservancy
Cattle and the Sycan Marsh: Restoring avian and aquatic habitat in the context of managed grazing
Andy Kerr, Czar, The Larch Company
Grazing permit retirement: Concepts and case studies of removing cattle from federal grazing allotments
Laura Van Riper, National Riparian Service Team, US Bureau of Land Management
The creeks and communities strategy: Collaborative approaches to solving problems around grazing and restoration

Moderator

James Honey, Program Director, Sustainable Northwest

Craig Bienz

Craig started working for The Nature Conservancy in May 1999. He is responsible for the management and restoration of Sycan Marsh. He participates in the Bull Trout Working Group with state and federal agencies and the Klamath Tribes. He is a member of the Fire Learning Network working in collaboration with the Klamath Tribes and the US Forest Service to expedite the restoration of fire adopted ecosystems in the Sprague Watershed. In coordinate with ZX Ranch he is responsible to implement a 10,000 AUM grazing program. Craig has been restoring the historic hydrologic regime and mechanics of flow regime as a disturbance mechanism to sustain ecological diversity and processes of natural selection. Prior to becoming Director of Sycan Marsh, Craig was the Director of the Natural Resources Department for the Klamath Tribes. In this capacity he was responsible to analyze, protect and restore aquatic/riparian systems and in building capacity for freshwater conservation. He developed and applied various ecological models to enhance habitats for species and subsistence resources, as well as provided scientific expertise for issues with Treaty Rights.

Andy Kerr

Andy Kerr is the Czar of The Larch Company and consults on environmental and conservation issues. The Larch Company is a for-profit non-membership conservation organization that represents the interests of humans yet born and species that cannot talk. He is best known for his two decades with Oregon Wild, the organization best known for having brought you the northern spotted owl. He's also Director of the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign, an effort to end abusive livestock grazing on public lands by providing fair compensation to affected ranchers and reallocating the forage to biodiversity conservation, watershed protection and carbon sequestration. He has lectured at all of Oregon's leading universities and colleges, as well at Harvard and Yale. Kerr has appeared numerous times on national television news and feature programs and has published numerous articles on environmental matters. He is a dropout of Oregon State University. He participated, by personal invitation of President Clinton, in the Northwest Forest Conference held in Portland in 1993 for which Willamette Week gave Kerr a "No Surrender Award." In his book Lasso the Wind, New York Times correspondent Tim Egan said of Kerr, "(h)e has a talent for speaking in such loaded sound bites that it was said by reporters that if Andy Kerr did not exist, someone would have to invent him.... (Kerr) forced some of the most powerful timber companies to retreat from a binge of clear-cutting that had left large sections of the Oregon Cascades naked of forest cover." Kerr is Treasurer and a founding board member of the North American Industrial Hemp Council, an organization dedicated to the re-commercialization of industrial hemp in the United States. The Oregonian named Kerr one of the 150 most interesting Oregonians in the newspaper's 150-year history. Kerr authored Oregon Desert Guide: 70 Hikes (published by The Mountaineers Books) and Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (published by Oregon Wild and distributed by Timber Press). A fifth-generation Oregonian, Kerr was born and raised in Creswell (a recovered timber town in the upper Willamette Valley). He lives in Ashland (a recovered timber town in the Rogue Valley). In his free time, Kerr likes to canoe, hike, raft, read, and work on projects that move their home and business toward energy self-sufficiency and atmospheric carbon neutrality.

Laura Van Riper

Laura received a dual degree in biology and human and natural ecology from Emory University in Atlanta, GA in 1996. Part of her undergraduate degree was completed in East Africa, where she studied community-based natural resource management. She completed her MS and PhD in resource conservation/forestry from the University of Montana in 1998 and 2003. Laura is presently employed by the Bureau of Land Management and occupies the social scientist position on the interagency National Riparian Service Team (NRST), which is an interagency, interdisciplinary team that works nationally and internationally with communities that are in conflict over the management of water and riparian resources. She is also a member of the Working Landscapes Alliance, a partnership between the NRST, Sustainable Northwest and various private consultants devoted to supporting the emergence of ecological and economically sustainable working ranches and landscapes across the West.

James Honey

James Honey is the Director of the Rangelands and Ranching and Klamath Programs at Sustainable Northwest. He has managed Sustainable Northwest’s efforts in the Klamath Basin since 2001. He is responsible for one of the first “working lands” conservation easements in Oregon, a potential model for broader settlement of water and restoration and economic issues in the Upper Klamath Basin. He is a recipient of the John Wesley Powell Award for outstanding contributions to Western watershed management for this and other innovative work with ranchers and the Klamath Tribes in the Basin. James also directs SNW’s emerging Ranchland Renewal program, through which he has assisted with the regional expansion of Country Natural Beef, the largest cooperative of Food Alliance certified natural beef producers in the West. James was born and raised in Mexico and is a graduate of Stanford University. His background includes complex class action litigation, and conservation work with the World Wildlife Fund Mexico and the California Hydropower Reform Coalition.

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