by Doug Warnock
The Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) Project in Kittitas County, Washington, is an example of positive results coming from people working together to solve problems and improve natural resources. It was the main feature of a meeting of CRM proponents recently in Ellensburg, WA.
CRM is about empowering local people to work together to resolve resource problems and coordinate their activities across the landscape and jurisdictional boundaries to result in positive outcomes for the land.
The Wild Horse project got its start in 2006, when a diverse group of people met to discuss ways to improve the rangelands of eastern Kittitas County. This area provides wintering and calving grounds for a resident elk herd, but over time had been deteriorating in forage quality and quantity. The elk had started coming down into the valley to forage on irrigated hay and pastureland, destroying crops and causing a financial burden for the farmers and ranchers.
The recommended solution for the problem was to improve the condition of the rangeland through planned grazing with cattle. This solution came from a group, known as the Big Game Management Roundtable (BGMR), after several years of studying the elk depredation problem. BGMR had been formed and operated using the CRM process.
Participating in this diverse group of stakeholders were agricultural producers, environmentalists, wildlife and resource conservationists, wind power enthusiasts, outdoor recreationists, state and federal agency representatives and the Yakama Nation. In its first meetings, the Wild Horse CRM group developed a goal and a mission. Its mission was to enhance rangeland health, improve wildlife habitat and promote collaboration among the landowners and users, both public and private, in eastern Kittitas County.
Ownership of the 60,000 acres involved in the Wild Horse project included Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Puget Sound Energy (PSE), and several private landowners. Most of the property is managed by WDFW. Through an open bidding process, Russ Stingley, a local cattle producer, was awarded a lease for grazing the CRM area. The Stingley family’s patience and devotion to the group’s goal were key to the program’s success.
Over the next 18 months, a team of range management specialists inventoried the rangeland included in the project. This information provided a base set of data on range condition for use in developing a grazing plan. Also, monitoring sites were established for periodic data collection to determine the results of the planned grazing.
In early 2010, the Western Watersheds Project (WWP), an organization based in Idaho, filed suit to stop grazing on property managed by WDFW. A settlement agreement was reached between Fish and Wildlife and Western Watersheds in January of 2011 in which the eastern half of the area would not be grazed for 20 years. Grazing would continue on the western part and monitoring would be done on it and that data used for evaluation of the effects of grazing over a twenty-year period.
At the meeting and tour this fall, Tip Hudson, Washington State University Extension Rangeland and Livestock Specialist, reported the land area in this project had retained its original plant community and was in good condition. The management applied over the ten or more years since the beginning of the project has been successful.
The Wild Horse CRM Project illustrates how a diverse group can collaborate to address a natural resources problem, arriving at a solution that is acceptable to the stakeholders. A team of rangeland specialists has been assisting the rancher in planning the grazing and is collecting valuable data for use in future planning and management.
Information on Coordinated Resource Management and how to get help in establishing a CRM project is available from Alison Halpern, Chair of the Washington CRM Taskforce at 360-407-6209.
Doug Warnock, retired from Washington State University Extension, lives on a ranch in the Touchet River Valley where he writes about and teaches grazing management.