The story of the Humboldt Ranch is about how a change in livestock grazing practices on a ranch in northeastern Nevada is transforming gullies to wetlands and landscapes to lifescapes. The Humboldt Ranch encompasses more than 140 miles of streams and over 350,000 acres of mixed public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and private lands owned by Nevada Gold Mines. Collectively, these lands support important habitat for an abundance of wildlife including Nevada’s native Lahontan cutthroat trout.

Learn more about this type of conservation + ranching work here: https://iwjv.org/newvideochanginga...

Historically, cattle and sheep grazed on streams and surrounding uplands throughout the growing season every year for over a century. Eventually, soil stabilizing plants that grow naturally in the area began to decline and miles of willowlined stream channels became miles of gullies. The local BLM office has a long history of working with ranch personnel and other partners to improve priority habitats in the area, but it was not until about 2004 that grazing practices began to change over the entire ranch, affecting thousands of acres of both public and private lands.

Based on a vision that combines economic viability with environmental sustainability, Gregg Simonds, mentor and founding partner of the Humboldt Ranch, implemented a ranchwide grazing program based on the concept of managing livestock for plant recovery. Rather than reducing livestock numbers, the ranch controls when and how long cattle stay in any one area, giving plant communities a chance to grow and thrive. Humboldt Ranch manager, Jesse Braatz and his wife, Ricarda, have been applying the principles of grazing for recovery for almost 15 years now in the face of floods, wildfires, and droughts.

Today, willows and other plants are becoming reestablished, old gullies are starting to heal, beaver are returning, water tables are rising and better habitat conditions are being created for a multitude of wildlife ranging from insects to trout and from birds to pronghorn antelope. In essence, this vast landscape is becoming a “lifescape”. By comparing current conditions to historical imagery and by conducting interviews with people who have lived or worked in this area for decades, the film explores the power of managed grazing to restore landscapes at scale and ultimately, to offer a vision for sustainable ranching on western rangelands.

The story of the Humboldt Ranch was created by the production company Little Wild, and funded by the Intermountain West Joint Venture, Bureau of Land Management, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Working Lands for Wildlife (https://www.wlfw.org), and Open Range Consulting.

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