The impact of grazing on fire ecology

We spend a lot of time talking to client's about the beneficial aspects of grazing, as this relates to fire and fire ecology.  But grazing when mismanaged or utilized inappropriately can actually shift species composition from a fire resistant to a fire prone environment.

As a rule, grazing can either promote or surpress certain types of vegetation. Targeting certain species of plants and vegetation is fundamental to shifting vegetation type. Type I or "light fuels" are more palatable to grazers during the early to late spring and can therefore be targeted during these periods. As a result of targeting these "light fuels" other types of fuels will persist.

Gradually, if only Type I fuels are targeted, the composition of the vegetation will shift towards the other types of fuels that have note been targeted.

In a managed grazing setting this propensity for the fuel type to shift is undertoood and used intentionally to shift an ecotone from fire prone to fire resistant. When grazing is applied without this understanding the results can be arbitrary at best. More often the result of mismanaged or unmanaged grazing is increased fuel loads with a gradual shift towards "heavy fuels" and more fire prone environments.

Grazing is a tool and also a fundamental component of many ecosystems. In a natural setting grazers are matched to their environment through evolutionary partnership where both grazer and the vegetation exist in symbiotic harmony. The grazer requires nutrient rich plant material while the plants require disturbance in the form of the grazer. If either component of this system is missing or disrupted, imbalance is the result. Similar imbalances evolve when grazing is applied without understanding. 

There are many levels of complexity in ecosystems and grazing is often a viable solution. However, grazing is one of a handful of tools that we can use to move environments towards sustainability. Like any tool we need to understand how and when to use it properly.

Post-modern “Environmentality”

We are on the frontier of developing new models for interacting within ecological systems. As new strategies emerge from a new found “green ethos” we are left with the question of what it means to be a human animal that is just as much a part of the ecosphere as it is dependent upon it. As the new millennium progresses we have reiterated our attempt to control, contain, and conceptualize natural systems anthropomorphically. These unwitting and often haphazard attempts to compartmentalize biotic systems and to deconstruct these systems from the top down have manifest an interesting variety of results ranging from productive to ineffectual to counterproductive.

As a response to practices that have beenmisconstrued as ecological domination, a new ecological cosmology based on the idea of non-action or non-management has evolved. However, it has become exceedingly clear that inaction is not a viable alternative and that positive, proactive, and progressive environmentality are required to shift our landscapes and ecotones towards health and functionality.

The paradigms that we are beginning to embrace are those of interconnectedness, that human beings are an integral part of all ecosystems in which they live and derive resources. What’s more, the paradigm of ecological collaboration is reemerging in recognition of the mutually deterministic relationship that exists between human and environment.

We are moving towards certain and inevitable ecological events. And this is because of ideas we perpetuate on an ecological level. The idea that open space and wildlands thrive under conditions of non-management has been disproved time and again. The idea that landscape determines its own evolutionary course regardless of the human component is no longer accepted. We are “the Gardeners of Eden”, and more than the responsibility to manage our resources, as our lifestyles and existences as we know them are certainly and ultimately dependent on availability of resources, we can “now” participate in and actualize open space and resource environments consciously.

Undoubtedly, we are interwoven into the fabric of the living system. Human systems have been integral to other biological systems for millennia. We are revisiting the understanding that human, animal, plant, soil, water, and air are all part of the larger Gaia matrix, which mediates our interactions through an invisible yet highly complex and intelligent biological network.

Consciousness, as it were, is the medium for these interactions to take place. Awareness of our inter-connectivity is manifest externally through the channels of biotic feedback loops, and finally inserted into the collective consciousness via media; this is the dynamic process of communication between the human mind and the Gaian or planetary mind. Although the language and syntax of human and planet are quite different, what is apparent is that humans are able to understand the needs and desires of ecosystems—even at the planetary level. We (mankind) are a conduit between biotic systems, as we can act upon and comprehend various layers of interconnectivity. The call to action has never been louder. Gaia is screaming, a battle cry for action on this planet. A call to reevaluate entrenched environmental dogma and to embrace our ability to participate ecologically.

__

Living Systems