Western Ranchlands Proves You Can Do Well by Doing Good

anching is one of the least ecologically damaging land uses; however, poor ranch management can still have negative environmental impacts. Ranching can also be financially challenging but good stewardship practices make it far less so.

Western Ranchlands took on the challenge of being an agricultural investment and land management firm that maintains a focus on both profitability and environmental sustainability.

I recently sat down with Dr. Sheldon Atwood, Western Ranchlands’ CEO and President, to discuss how the company puts its motto of “Doing Good, While Doing Well” into action. As Atwood put it, “Our vision is to create a business model that perpetuates the conservation and preservation of large landscapes but does so in a very robust financial and economically viable way.

”Following is a summary of our discussion.

Christine Cooper: You’ve said that ranching operations often end up fragmented as the business gets passed down from one generation to the next. That, in turn, leads to the fragmentation of the land base and, ultimately, the dissolution of the business itself. What are the larger implications of this?

Dr. Sheldon Atwood: With fragmentation comes the loss of economies of scale from a business standpoint, as well as lost environmental contiguity. This puts land use on a slippery slope to ecological disaster and results in fewer people on the landscape attuned to the health of the land or capable of managing it effectively.

Cooper: Sustainability is at the core of Western Ranchlands’ philosophy. You’ve described the common idea that profits and sustainability are mutually exclusive in ranching as a “fundamental fallacy.” Could you explain why?

Dr. Atwood: The long-term economic health and long-term wealth that are generated by a living organism—land—are directly in lockstep with each other. Therefore, any impairment to the long-term ecological health of the land impairs the long-term financial benefit of that same asset.

Cooper: Can you talk about how running a more sustainable operation has revitalized the land?

Dr. Atwood: There are many examples. For instance, parts of the ranch that were historically precluded from grazing and were fire suppressed for a hundred years have become very dense, very thick, with very small-diameter trees. Our conservation-oriented partners did a number of biological assessments across the property, and one of their findings identified that the center of these over-dense woodland areas was essentially a biological desert. The trees weren't actively growing any longer, limiting their ability to extract carbon from the atmosphere. Relatively speaking, there was virtually no living wildlife very far beyond the outer boundaries.We worked carefully with each of those organizations to craft an ecological plan that allowed for a diversity of structure and spatial organization of that timber. That allows areas that are opened up to be adjacent to areas that are still wooded, and it allows wildlife and natural migration into those edge areas. That edge becomes protective for the wildlife, but it is also juxtaposed with a food source for that wildlife. So, the biodiversity quotient in those areas goes way, way up. And the spatial distribution also reduces the threat of wildfires.

Cooper: Of course, you can only declare success if you can measure it. How does Western Ranchlands measure the financial success of its efforts?

Dr. Atwood: Being able to improve the health of the living sponge [land] and its ability to produce more grass or keep that grass greener longer into the year—that reduces my winter feed costs because I have green forage for longer. It also increases my turnover by allowing me to have more animals on a given land base because now I have more forage.We can measure the amount of forage we harvest, proving the ability to improve carrying capacity, and lower the land cost per unit of production, or increase the rate of return per unit of investment. Another thing we do is to use livestock as a tool to change vegetation and distribute nutrients. To improve our ability to do this, we have linked together a number of water wells with a pipeline that has the capacity to put all that water into one location, anywhere on the ranch at any given time. That allows us to put together large herds of animals. They go to a specific piece of property, and they graze it more evenly and more uniformly. They're not out there over extended periods of time creating trails and degrading the landscape. They make an impact, they leave, and then it allows more time for those plants to recover. You get less of the scrubby brush and more and more of the nutritious plants that livestock want.At the same time, labour costs are significantly lower when there are fewer large herds than when there are more animals spread out over larger areas for longer periods. This also opens up other types of opportunities for other species and interest groups. The way we manage, livestock are rarely on more than 5% of the ranch at once. That leaves 95% available for wildlife and people at any given time.

Cooper: Given the success that you have seen and the evolution that you've been taking the ranch through, what are you most excited about in the future?

Dr. Atwood: People have come from around the world, and they see what this model could mean—not just for their patch of dirt, but for the earth, for the whole world. They can see for themselves that we can completely transform the marginal cropland and the imperfectly managed or degraded ranch land that's out there using this regenerative model. And, by doing so, we can completely reverse the carbon-negative footprint of our entire society while producing healthy food, maintaining open space, enhancing biodiversity and generating positive returns. In other words, without asking for handouts or relying on regulation, we’re taking the entire greenhouse gas emission equation and flipping it on its head. And that is positive for everybody that believes in climate change and the human impact.

The Western Ranchlands interview provided an insightful discussion on its commitment to operating a more conservation-minded business that has been both profitable and environmentally sustainable. Listen to the full discussion here.