Reading the Land

Landscapes tell stories… mosaics of patterns made up of rocks, soils, plant and animal communities — flows of energy, wind, water, minerals, a whole community dynamic unfolding day after day, season after season, year after year.

This is natural history.

The puzzle is learning to read the land well enough, that we can make informed decisions of how to seamlessly fit in with it, and eventually harness ecosystem processes to meet our needs. The hard part is figuring out how to tap into the power of your place and stay in balance… without buying inputs from far away, fertilizer, feed, pesticides.

I work with people who want to better understand their land and tap into its inherent potential.

Everything starts with the soil. Understanding how soil functions on a basic level, and what kind of soil you have will determine what is suitable to grow there.

Looking out over a large landscape, you can tell what kind of soils exist just by reading what plants are growing. Every plant prefers certain soil types based on where it evolved. Plants belong to families, just like animals. Particular families have specific tendencies in how and where they grow, how they behave.

When we understand how the landscape was formed, and what plant families truly belong there, we can set ourselves up for success by imitating the patterns that are already successful. That’s what ecological design is in a nutshell. We study natural history, and learn to read the landscape so we know how to live in balance with it.

What ecosystem processes are at play here?

How does the water cycle function on this land? The mineral cycle? Biology, and our economics?

Understanding natural history is one thing, but then you have what is called the emergent aspects. What is emerging now? Nature isn’t this static unchanging thing, I think a lot of people think it is because the changes are slow most of the time, until you have a wildfire, or a flood, dramatic events that happen only every 100, or 500 years.

One of the big challenges of land management in the West, is that the land has become so fragmented. What were once sprawling ecosystems, have been cut up into smaller and smaller private land fragments and everyone has a different idea of how they want to manage them.

It’s a very western individualistic way of going about things, but I think it’s hurting us all in the long run. We need to approach land management from a whole systems level. If you look at the land without all the property lines, but looking at the natural patterns, soils, slopes, aspects(what direction does it face, north, south, east, west?), plant communities, water and wildlife flows, wind… you’ll start to see how nature flows — how things are really separated, despite fences and private property.

There’s the old farmer adage, “Your corn is only as good as your neighbor’s.” Which has to do with corn being wind pollinated, so your neighbors corn will inevitably cross-pollinate with yours and affect the next generation’s genetics.

It’s the same with soils, weeds, flow of water, etc.… If our neighbor is spraying herbicides or reliant on chemical N fertilizer we are more likely to do the same. And conversely, if we want to manage weeds without herbicides and our neighbor doesn’t, how can we come up with a plan that doesn’t hurt us both?

That’s why tools like conservation are so important, it helps keep whole ecosystems in tact, and time is dedicated to creating a shared vision and management plan.

We still need to make a positive difference on our land, even if its just a 1/4 acre parcel, 40 acres, or 4,000, a small piece of a greater system.

I believe good land stewardship is a lot like good health. The good habits often don’t have immediate rewards, and bad habits might give immediate gratification but have long term consequences. Things take a lot longer than you might expect. We have to be committed for the long haul. We have to think long term, in generations.

And we have to bring as many other species along with us in coevolution as possible.

Where are the natural partnerships? How can we add value to the entire ecological community we inhabit?

In service,

Michael