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NRCS Practices for Connecting Landscapes
Although fencelines often divide the landscapes of the Intermountain West, water and wildlife do not abide by those boundaries. Conservation of these important resources relies on an understanding of landscape-scale connectivity. This visual representation of various practices used by USDA NRCS on private agricultural land and public land leased for agriculture seeks to create dialogue…
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Creating Miracles in the Desert: Restoring Dixie Creek Film
For decades, cattle grazed the vegetation growing alongside Dixie Creek continuously throughout the summer. A stream that once supported Nevada’s native cutthroat trout, was reduced to a trickle in the bottom of a deep gully. In 1991, the Elko District of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) built some fences around Dixie Creek so the…
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A Hub for Conservation and Ranching on Montana’s North-Central Plains
Providing livestock with consistent water is often one of the biggest challenges faced by ranchers in the West. Opportunities to do so are thin on the ground and become even thinner throughout the summer, especially in a drought year like the one experienced in north-central Montana in 2021. Tyrel Obrecht, who operates the Louie Petrie…
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Klamath Basin Farming and Wetlands Coalesce in RCPP
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it is investing $3.8 million in the Klamath Basin Farming and Wetland Collaborative project in the Klamath Basin through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). This investment will bring some much-needed relief to farmers and migratory birds over the next…
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Restoration and Ranching on Witcher Creek Ranch
Article and photos by Glenn Nader, Witcher Creek Ranch, Canby, California Editor’s Note: Water 4 supports partnership-based conservation tailored to the unique opportunities and needs within landscapes, including conservation easements, agricultural flood irrigation infrastructure enhancements, fish and big game habitat improvement, and water management planning timed to habitat needs. This series of projects on a…
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Of Ducks and Ditches: Infrastructure and Habitat in Colorado’s North Park
Article by Casey Setash Come springtime in the West, ducklings motor around the irrigation ditches of ranching country like cars on a highway. In Colorado’s North Platte Basin, these ditch-driving ducklings depend on the infrastructure provided by the ditches as much as the ranchers who use them to irrigate their fields. The ducklings cannot fly…
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Hope After Rangeland Fire
Note from the IWJV Coordinator, Dave Smith: The turning of the page into a new year brings an array of human emotions – reflection, gratitude, anticipation, a resolve to improve, and, most of all, hope. In 2021, coming off perhaps the most difficult year in a century, hope exists at so many levels. There is…
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Completing the Puzzle for Pacific Flyway Waterbird Habitat Conservation
Photo by Leslie Morris. As the weather warms and days grow longer each spring, the Northern pintails of the Pacific Flyway stretch their wings and heed their names. Leaving their wintering grounds in the rice fields of California’s Central Valley, the pintails fly north to take advantage of the wet meadows in the Southern…
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Working Lands and Habitat Get Boost from RCPP
After the crew at the Holiday Ranch heard about the opportunity to increase irrigation efficiency through the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) from others in California’s ranching community, they were interested in getting involved. Even though the ranch is based in Cottonwood, California, ranch crew member Justin Zacharias said it…
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Frequently Asked Questions and Answers about Outcome-based Grazing
In 2017, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it was beginning a collaborative approach to issuing grazing authorizations, which is the permitting system through which private livestock operators (known as permittees) utilize federal lands. In March 2018, BLM selected 11 demonstration projects in six states, with a variety of conditions and circumstances. The…
