Recently, I had the good fortune of participating in a tour of Northern California that highlighted how ranchers can play a critical role providing and protecting wetland habitat in the West. The tour, hosted by the Intermountain West Joint Venture, visited two cattle ranches and the Ash Creek Wildlife Area, managed by the state of California. Family Farm Alliance President Pat O’Toole — a sheep and cattle rancher from Wyoming — sits on the management board of IWJV, whose mission is to conserve priority bird habitats through partnership-driven, science-based projects and programs.

The partnership philosophy of the IWJV is an excellent template for a new paradigm of conservation that benefits the environment and agriculture.

Dave Smith, IWJV coordinator, explained to tour participants how private landowners have been key players in conserving wildlife for four to five generations. He and others involved with the 60-plus-person tour talked about the importance of wetlands in the Closed Basins and Klamath Basin, which are part of a complex extending across southern Oregon and northeastern California (SONEC) that provides some of the continent’s most important habitat for waterfowl, shorebirds and other water birds.

Approximately 30% of the world’s population fly through this area of the IWJV, so Dave and his crew are aiming to preserve as much of this habitat as possible.

Flood irrigation and conservation
In this part of the West, flood irrigation applied by farmers and ranchers is critical to bird habitat. Waterfowl advocates cannot provide wetland habitat in this part of the world unless it is made to be a priority to the landowners of this area. Flood irrigation still has a large role to play here.

The SONEC region is one of the most productive spring staging areas for waterfowl in North America. Wetlands in SONEC serve as a crucial migration hub between wintering areas in California and breeding grounds in Alaska and on the Canadian prairie. The lessons learned in this region will soon be applied to a wider swath of the West.

IWJV is developing the Working Wetlands and Water in the West — or Water 4 — Initiative to support agricultural producers, public land managers, and other conservation partners with wetlands conservation on working lands in ways that matter to people. This includes improved forage production; higher-quality, wildlife-associated recreation; and enhanced groundwater recharge.

The initiative will emphasize work in landscapes that are existing models of an “optimal mix of ecological and social elements,” including SONEC, the Upper-Middle Rio Grande corridor, the Eastern Idaho-High Divide region and the Bear River watershed.

Working flood-irrigated ranchlands provide vital wetland habitat for waterfowl and a host of other migratory birds. The Water 4 Initiative is important because it will help ranchers in appropriate locations to continue traditional flood irrigation management practices that have been used for generations to produce forage, provide wildlife habitat and sustain floodplain function.

It will be exciting to see how this initiative will help to catalyze communications that help farmers and ranchers tell the story of the value of working wet meadows in the Intermountain West.

Keppen is the executive director of Family Farm Alliance.