It Takes a Village
Coconino County, Arizona · By Sue and Tony Norris
The Prosser and the Metzger families have been neighbors for more than eighty
years. Their combined ranches, the Bar T Bar and the Flying M, consist of 426,000 acres of federal, state, and private lands spread across a broad swath of northern Arizona southeast of Flagstaff, between Mormon Lake and the town of Winslow. This massive holding covers six different biological zones that range from ponderosa pine forest at 7,500 feet in elevation to Little Colorado River valley desert scrubland at 5,000 feet. It is home to a diverse wildlife population, including four threatened and endangered species. A defile, known as Diablo Canyon, separates the ranches from one another. It is from this limestone chasm that a unique collaboration took its name.
Formed in 1993, the Diablo Trust is now a flourishing collaborative land management team whose mission is to “maintain ranches as long-term, economically viable enterprises managed in harmony with the natural environment and the broader community.” Besides the ranchers, participants include environmental activists, government range and wildlife officials, artists, academics and students, recreation enthusiasts and hunters, and any community member who wants to participate in the land stewardship process.
Seated on the weather-worn steps of an old cabin nestled high in the pines, Judy Prosser, who with her husband Bob and twin sons runs the Bar T Bar, recalls the group’s beginnings. She explains that the climate in the early 1990s was more than a little hostile toward area ranchers. The Flagstaff newspaper was rife with “anti-grazing propaganda.” Judy and her family wanted people to understand that not all ranchers do a bad job and so they joined with Jack Metzger’s family to proactively tell their story. After all, both families had grown up, gone to school, and raised their families in the area. “We called a meeting of just about everyone we knew,” says Judy, “invited a facilitator, and began the hard business of bridging the gap between ranchers and their critics.”
Ten years and countless monthly meetings and team-building retreats later, the Diablo Trust has made considerable headway in bridging the gap between the various stakeholders’ interests. “The collaborative allows us to work within a community, and the community to work with us,” explains Jack.
As part of the collaboration, scientists from Northern Arizona University (NAU) and Prescott College have conducted research on comparative grazing practices, riparian and wetlands areas, piٌon-juniper regeneration and distribution, and various wildlife studies. “The research helps us determine if we are getting the desired effects on the ground from our use, since there is a symbiotic relationship between grazing and the health of the land,” observes Jack. Besides providing scientific feedback for future decision-making, these projects involve students and community members as hands-on participants. And the scientific community has come to appreciate the knowledge and know-how of those who live and work on the land.
During annual Diablo campouts held in conjunction with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, State Land Department, and Arizona Antelope Foundation, more than three miles of fence has been reconstructed to allow free movement of pronghorn antelope. Joint projects have been undertaken with a variety of organizations, including EcoResults, the Center for Sustainable Environments at NAU, and the Grand Canyon Trust. Presentations have been made to dozens of community groups ranging from the Kiwanis Club to the Ecological Society of America. A website, brochures, and a three-part educational video with curriculum tell the story of the Diablo Trust’s goals and successes.
During their annual “Artists on the Land” days, visual and performing artists, writers, and musicians are invited to enjoy the beauty of the ranchland and to create songs, poems, and pictures in celebration. The results are then displayed and performed at the “Reflections of the Land” Art Show at NAU. Musician Trish Jahnke observes, “The best way to educate is through the heart. We know that only through heartfelt community can we bring about protection for our local family ranches.” Jack fondly recalls the day he watched dancers with streamers fill a meadow with movement and color – somewhat to the consternation of the indigenous equine population.
In recognition of these unique collaborations, Diablo Trust has been designated a National Reinventing Government Laboratory, and has been honored by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Still, such recognition does little to hasten the bureaucratic machinations that are holding up adoption of the comprehensive management plan developed in 1999. This plan includes all national forest, state, and private lands in the six vegetative management zones. Jack describes the environmental review of the Forest Service portion as “process paralysis,” and counts it as a major frustration.
Other challenges that loom large include finding outside funds to finance improvements, as the ranches themselves have borne most of the cost so far; dealing with a burgeoning elk population that devastates cattle forage; and confronting continuing efforts to eliminate grazing on public lands.
When asked what progress has been made, the Metzgers and Prossers point to the restoration of several thousand acres of watershed through removal of invasive juniper trees. This has allowed native grasses to reestablish themselves, and has produced a richer and diverse plant community – thereby benefiting both cattle and wildlife. But all agree that the greatest accomplishment has been interpersonal – the building of trust between people of disparate interests and value systems in order to work toward the common goal of doing what’s best for the land and the people who live and work on it.
The collaborative process has led Sierra Club activist Norm Wallen to this conclusion: “My experience with the Diablo Trust has convinced me that family ranching is the best hope for the rangeland of the Southwest. If they are driven out, I believe much of this land which I love will be either allowed to deteriorate through erosion and other symptoms of death or turned into senseless subdivisions.”
Kit Metzger, Jack’s sister, is in charge of the grazing plans for the ranches. When asked what she sees as the overriding purpose of their efforts, her answer concurs with Norm’s: “to keep us on the land.”
Staying on the land also means managing the economic risks associated with ranching in today’s global economy. To this end, the families have worked to financially diversify their operations. Bob Prosser has had some success with a sod business. Jack Metzger is attempting to develop a market for small-diameter timber from the watershed restoration project, but explains that few businesses are willing to take a chance on a relatively small-scale supplier. Family ranch enterprises are between a rock and a hard place in other areas as well. They are too big to cater to local value-added meat markets, yet too small to process meat themselves. These two ranches have been successful in producing an above-average product on the open market, however, resulting in premium prices for their beef.
In the final analysis, it takes a little of everything to keep a family ranch viable: money, ingenuity, and hard work, as well as careful collaboration with government agencies, special interest groups, the scientific community, and the average citizen. The Metzgers, Prossers, and the Diablo Trust are showing that these days “it takes a village to raise a cow.”
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