Terry Wheeler operates a 7,500 acre cattle ranch on the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. He is also the owner and president of Wheeler and Associates, a consulting firm that provides expert advice and on-the-ground services to clients in agriculture, mining and a range of other industries. Terry is perhaps best known as the originator of Holistic Stabilization and Remediation, a process involving the use of hooved animals as a tool to build soil on sites in low stages of ecological development which he has developed for reclamation of mine tailings.

Terry Wheeler

Terry credits his innovation to the influence of the Holistic Resource Management (HRM) model brought from Africa to America by Allan Savory in the early 1980's. "When I first got involved with Allan Savory in 1986, I had been a professional range/watershed specialist for 28 years. I was quite discouraged with a lot of our work because it seemed like we were losing the war against land desertification in arid climatic zones. This is particularly true in third world countries where long-term holistic pastoral grazing schemes have been replaced with modern technology."

"When Allan spoke about the missing keys in environmental management, I knew that his assumptions were right, because everything he talked about reminded me of specific problems I was experiencing on the land. Allan's process was a departure from traditional range management, which had become almost exclusively a mechanical process. His process looks at the natural function of things on the land, and uses natural tools to stimulate those functions and relationships toward desired goals."

"Coming away from my initial seminar on a 7-hour drive home, I had the opportunity to relate all these new ideas to my work in mining reclamation. It suddenly occurred to me that mine tailings, thought by most people to be toxic waste piles, were no more than mechanical alluvial deposits lacking both organic matter and life, thus at the lowest stage of successional development. I thought that perhaps by using a ruminant herbivore such as a cow we could reestablish the successional process. The mechanical action of the hooves could stabilize the deposits and prepare a seedbed, while adding life and nutrients through manure. With this new concept, I had the opportunity to do things more effectively on the land than had ever been possible with a traditional approach to range management."

Following that introduction, Terry spent several years as an accredited consultant with Allan Savory's Center for Holistic Resource Management in Albuquerque, New Mexico. HRM is a goal-oriented process that begins with in-depth planning and visioning among all the stakeholders in an issue. Together, the group develops a 3-part integrated goal that includes: 1) Quality of life for the group, whether it is a family, tribe or range of interests; 2) Production, through farming, ranching, forestry or non-economic production such as aesthetic improvements or better water quantity; and 3) Future landscape condition, in terms of biodiversity, conversion of solar energy, or some other ecological measure. The group's task is to determine how these goals fit together. For example, which form of production best fits with the lifestyle and quality of life the group is trying to achieve?

This integrated goal provides a framework to evaluate and monitor whether planned management activities will take the group toward its goal or away from them. "When we do something on the land it affects everything from quality of life to landscape integrity – action and reaction," says Terry. "With HRM we try to predetermine the effects of our management decisions. We may predict they will take us toward the goal, but we have to monitor everything to test our predictions. The key to a successful plan is flexibility, the ability to modify and change the plan at any point in the process when it is determined our plan is taking us away from our goal."

Terry explains that in HRM, managers look at four essential ecosystem cycles to enable them to evaluate the success of the plan. The first is "succession," the functional status of plant or animal communities from early stages (pioneer species) to climax stage with dynamic stability. The next two blocks work closely together, but they are considered separately in HRM. Within the "water cycle" managers examine whether rain runs off the land causing erosion or penetrates the soil to replenish springs and aquifers and provide moisture for plant growth. Within the "mineral cycle," they examine how readily standing material is recycled back into the soil profile where plants and animals can access it to support growth. The final cycle is "energy," the conversion of solar energy through photosynthesis into plant material.

"When we develop our water and mineral cycles and make them more functional, then we begin to bring successional development to higher stages. In higher stages we have more plants, with greater ability to capture solar energy, which is the basis of wealth on the land, that can be converted into livestock, wildlife and other products. We use a combination of natural and mechanical tools to stimulate the ecosystem process toward our 3-part goal, through planning, implementation, monitoring, and replanning."

The HRM toolbox is diverse. Terry explains: "Natural tools include fire, rest, animal impact and grazing, and living organisms. Technology is all of the mechanical ways that we modify conditions on the land or in society. Anything from an axe or a waterline, to a bulldozer or computer."

The implications of HRM are vast. "Once you learn this model, it becomes a thought process you begin to apply to anything you do."

Mine tailings reclaimed by grazing

When Terry acquired the Tonto Forest Ranch in 1992, in the midst of controversy over public lands grazing, he decided to use the ranch as an educational tool bringing together scientific knowledge, public values and compliance with environmental laws. He assembled a management team from a wide range of public interests – local citizens, environmentalists, other ranchers and land managers – and invited them to develop a management plan for the ranch to improve lands degraded by previous grazing and other uses.

"I began by reminding people that livestock not only have a role in arid environments, but they are essential to a maintaining a stable dynamic plant and animal community – including wildlife, insects, microorganisms and everything else. These areas evolved with grazers and fire. But when the grazers were removed, we removed nature's recyclers, and the agents of natural succession."

"Though I introduced myself as the owner of the ranch, I invited them to develop a plan to address the values of the whole community – not just my own. I turned the process over to a facilitator and stepped back to become just one member of a larger team. Together we developed a set of goals, the management tools to achieve them, and a monitoring system to track how our management was moving us toward the goals. The result was better than if I had done it on my own. Everyone was pleased with the planning process, and they empowered me to carry it out. The team continues to do the monitoring over time."

"Even though we have been in a drought cycle for the past six years, conditions on the land are improving. Ground cover is increasing, and the successional dynamics of the landscape are increasing, creating stability and adding diversity to the range. We have helped maintain our wildlife populations during drought with windmills, pipelines, improved springs and water storage that would not have been possible without the economic engine of cattle. When we finally do get rain for 2 or 3 good years in a row, our conditions will take a giant leap forward. That's really exciting to me."

Terry Wheeler
Wheeler and Associates, Inc.
PO Box 2792
Globe, AZ 85501
Tel: (520) 425-3017

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