In for the long view - long-term

Management of natural resources needs to be a long-view and long-term proposition. This is not to say that some short-term issues cannot be addressed with temporary short-term action.

In managing uses, economic opportunity and values of natural resources, there are and needs to be multiple “tools” available. Limiting ourselves to one tool is not in natural resource values or our best interest.

Rarely do natural resource management challenges have single “silver bullet” solutions. In practice managing natural resources involves dealing with multiple interconnected and complex relationships.

Grazing of cow-calf pairs at the same time for the same duration at the same stocking rate is not the only tool to manage soil and vegetation while generating revenue. Managing with other kinds and classes of livestock at different seasons for different durations, targeted grazing, refined haying practices, mowing, prescription burning, herbicides, farming and several other “tools” need to be available to us.

Even managing a specific narrowly defined issue of natural resources can be addressed with multiple tools. Herbicides are not the only way to manage weeds. Limiting our tools to a single tool limits our ability to manage natural resource challenges and opportunities.

Lethal trapping of beavers will not fix the long-term challenges of maintaining healthy: streams, riparian communities, fisheries, fishing opportunities, water quality, watershed, cottonwood trees, etc. Lethal trapping is one tool to manage a specific problem at a specific time and place, but is not the single management tool to deal with the larger natural resource challenges with streams, riparian communities, etc., in meeting the long term goals of management?

It is time to get our heads together and get beyond the short term single-tool approach and have the discussion about management for the long run in the interest of our park and the natural resources opportunities it has and can provide. It is also time to put the winners-losers approach and politics of natural resource management in perspective and recognize it for what it is. 

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Lou Hagener is a Certified Professional in Rangeland Management by the Society for Range Management, a home grown resident of Havre, frequent user and advocate for Beaver Creek Park.