About 1,400 miles south, another progressive grasslands management project that takes a working lands approach to conservation has caught the eye of WWF’s experts. Enrique Prunes, who works on groundwater and agricultural water for WWF-US, explains that the Dixon Water Foundation’s ranch in Marfa, Texas, has developed a food production cycle that benefits biodiversity, ecosystem conservation, and the water system while giving ranchers flexible grazing options.
The ranch is in the Chihuahuan desert, which includes parts of the transboundary Rio Grande-Rio Bravo River Basin spanning the US-Mexico border. Here, ranchers, farmers, policy-makers, and communities are struggling to balance their water budget—defined as the amount of water they use within the limits of how much the basin can provide—while maintaining the agricultural heritage of their communities.
This dry basin is one of the most at risk of collapse in the world. Increasingly frequent droughts and warmer temperatures due to climate change have compounded the harmful effects of poorly planned dams, water diversion for irrigation, overgrazing by cattle, and allocating more water to users than is available in the system. The allocations differ between Mexico and the US, but most water here irrigates crops like alfalfa that are used to feed cattle for meat and dairy production; a small percentage goes to other crops, including cotton, pecans, corn, and sorghum.
The Dixon ranch encompasses the Alamito Creek watershed, a Rio Grande-Rio Bravo tributary. As is typical in the area, many water channels have deepened over time due to increased incision—a natural process whereby a river cuts down into the bedrock—disconnecting the creek from the river’s floodplains, increasing siltation and runoff, and altering the groundwater hydrology. But by mimicking the system nature designed, Dixon’s ranching practices have begun to reverse these effects and to restore the freshwater system.
“We’re trying to reconnect the system and give the water a chance to slow down, infiltrate, and recharge the groundwater,” says Philip Boyd, who directs science and communications for the Dixon Water Foundation. Cattles’ hooves help break up the hard ground and allow grasses to seed. This process further increases water infiltration and carbon sequestration through better and healthier grasses, thereby shifting from “a vicious cycle to a virtuous one,” adds the foundation’s president, Robert Potts.
As the vegetation grows back, it lets rain soak into the ground and raises the water table, and it provides aquatic habitat and seasonal pasture. The grass also holds in place some soil that would otherwise be swept into the creeks and protects the biodiversity that depends on grasslands, particularly migratory birds.
Casey Wade, the vice president of ranching operations, views cattle grazing as a tool that functions in service of the landscape. “There can be a perception that the cattle are bad for the land—and they absolutely can be—but our ranches show cattle can also improve habitat and restore land and water systems,” he says.
The foundation runs four ranches using such regenerative agricultural approaches, creating a space to experiment, collaborate, and learn. It’s also become a resource for ranching colleagues and friends. “It’s not about pitting one practice against another,” says Wade, but instead about meeting ranchers where they are and collaborating on solutions that are good for nature and address the challenges they face.