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Ranchers form Stewardship Alliance

Moving cattle at the Matador. Photo © Kathe LeSage

What the ranchers say: "We have all the wildlife here because the ranchers have taken care of the land. If you take care of the ground, it will take care of you." -- Kevin Koss, rancher and member of the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance and the Matador Grassbank.  "It's been a long slow process...The relationship and trust built between folks helped us create the Stewardship Alliance and that has allowed us to work more cohesively as a community. It's allowed us to become more organized and more goal-oriented, and that has made it easier for other people to work with us." -- Dale Veseth, rancher and member of the Alliance and the grassbank.

Prairie stewards

in Montana's northern grasslands

One outcome of ranchers' experience with the Matador Grassbank in northern Montana has been the realization that if ranchers speak as one voice, they can make a difference. The trust and relationships developed through the grassbank led to the formation of the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance. About 36 multi-generational ranch families are participating in the RSA, which officially incorporated as a non-profit in 2007. 
Download the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance fact sheet (.pdf, 214 kb)

RSA Goals

1. to engage in collaborative conservation and community building
2. to encourage ranching and other traditional livelihoods which will sustain our native grasslands and rural communities
3. to disseminate information on the ecology and sustainable management of northern grasslands
4. to promote understanding of ranching and the critical role it plays in conservation

RSA Accomplishments

The group has developed a rancher-developed wildlife conservation plan spanning over 1.5 million acres of the northern Montana prairies. (Federal and state agencies are using that effort to jumpstart incentive-based conservation of prairie dogs and ferrets.)

The group is bringing in outside experts to explore such topics as estate planning, strategies to improve ranching profits, how to derive income from wildlife and ways to add value to beef production.

The RSA is traveling -- to the Nebraska Sandhills, to the Malpai Borderlands of Arizona and New Mexico, and to the Blackfoot Valley (Blackfoot Challenge) -- to see for itself what other ranching conservation groups are accomplishing. 

The RSA is hosting community meetings in Phillips County that engage local ranchers, citizens, community groups, government agencies and conservation groups, including the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and the American Prairie Foundation in a dialog about the future of the area.

Sustainable Range Management

Fourteen ranches in South Phillips County have been certified for sustainable range management through the Undaunted Stewardship program, a joint project of Montana State University and the Montana Stockgrowers Association. That means these ranchers -- who are members of the Alliance -- practice good grazing management by rotating their cattle and keeping their stocking rates in line with the land's carrying capacity. These ranchers are also part of MSU's Weed Prevention Area program, which means they take aggressive action to prevent weed invasion and weed establishment in prioritized weed-free rangelands and critical zones where weeds are advancing.