Mountain & Prairie Podcast

Kelsey Molloy & Angel DeVries – Fortifying Grasslands and Communities on the Northern Great Plains

Kelsey Molloy is the Northern Great Plains Director at The Nature Conservancy and Angel DeVries is the Executive Director of the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance (RSA), and they both live and work on the Northern Great Plains in Malta, Montana. While they work for different organizations, Kelsey and Angel collaborate on a long list of critical projects, most of which are focused on grassland conservation, ranching, and community partnerships.

One of their most notable collaborations involves the Matador Ranch, a 60,000-acre TNC-owned property near Dodson, Montana. The Matador Ranch is home to an outside-the-box conservation initiative known as a grassbank, which is a partnership opportunity that offers ranchers grazing access to rich grasses in exchange for adopting sustainable practices on their own property.

This grassbank was introduced during the historic drought of the early 2000s, and it offered much needed grazing opportunities for ranching families whose homeplaces had been hit hard by the dry conditions. Since then, for the past 20+ years, the grassbank has continued to provide win-win solutions for ranchers and conservation-focused non-profit organizations, as well as helping to bolster trust, goodwill, and community cohesiveness.

As you’ll hear in this conversation, the grassbank has been such a success, the TNC is currently searching for another ranch to acquire and eventually transform into a community led and owned grassbank. This “grassbank 2.0” will not only provide a grazing safety net during times of drought, but will also further the work of providing opportunities for new or young ranchers who are just entering the business but do not yet have the capital to purchase their own land.

We connected via the magic of the internet, and had a wide-ranging conversation about their productive collaboration, grassbanks, challenges and opportunities in the Northern Great Plains, and more. We discussed the work of the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance, the history of the Matador Ranch, and the ins and outs of the Matador Ranch grassbank. We discussed how skyrocketing land values are making it nearly impossible for new ranchers to enter the business, and also how succession planning is becoming an important, but often underappreciated, issue for ranching families. We also talked a lot about the need for optimism and curiosity, the importance of building community, and how TNC and RSA are working to bridge cultural and geographic divides. We also learn about RSA’s book club, which will likely be of great interest to many of you.

I learned so much from this conversation and appreciate Kelsey and Angel taking time out of their busy schedules to chat with me. Hope you enjoy!

Header photo © Ami Vitale/TNC, headshots courtesy of Kelsey and Angel

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EPISODE PARTNER:

This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Colorado chapter of The Nature Conservancy and TNC chapters throughout the Western United States. Guided by science and grounded by decades of collaborative partnerships, The Nature Conservancy has a long-standing legacy of achieving lasting results to create a world where nature and people thrive.

On the last Tuesday of every month throughout 2024, Mountain & Prairie will be delving into conversations with a wide range of The Nature Conservancy’s leaders, partners, collaborators, and stakeholders, highlighting the myriad of conservation challenges, opportunities, and solutions here in the American West and beyond. You can access all of the episodes here.

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy’s impactful work in the West and around the world, visit www.nature.org

RESOURCES:

Topics Discussed:

4:00 - Kelsey and Angel introduce themselves
8:10 - Background on the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance (RSA)
10:00 - A few of the biggest challenges facing Great Plains ranchers
15:30 - The history of the Matador Ranch and the grassbank
22:00 - Lessons learned from the grassbank
24:15 - A local’s perspective on the grassbank
25:30 - Wildlife-friendly fencing explained
26:30 - Other examples of grassbanks
30:15 - Emerging plans for a new grassbank
33:45 - Steps involved in finding a new property
36:00 - Success stories from the Matador Ranch
41:00 - Easements as a tool for grasslands restoration
43:45 - Importance of positivity and optimism
48:45 - Importance of optimism
52:00 - Important books
56:15 - RSA book club
59:45 - Words of wisdom

Information Referenced:

Kelsey Molloy
Angel DeVries
TNC Montana
Ranchers Stewardship Alliance
Matador Ranch
Malta, MT
AUM
Matt Morehead
Amber Smith
Winnett ACES
Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge
Plowprint report from World Wildlife Fund
Pioneer Cattleman in Montana: The Story of the Circle C Ranch by Walt Coburn
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery
Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy
The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future
Brené Brown
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
Otters Dance: A Rancher's Journey to Enlightenment and Stewardship by Bob Budd
RSA Book Club and other events
Elaine Froese

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Kelsey Molloy & Angel DeVries – Fortifying Grasslands and Communities on the Northern Great Plains

The Partnership of Rangeland Trusts – 20 Years of Cooperation, Collaboration, and Conservation

If you’re a longtime Mountain & Prairie listener, then you’re already familiar with the Partnership of Rangeland Trusts, also known as PORT. But for any new listeners, PORT is an alliance of agriculture-focused conservation organizations dedicated to preserving working farms and ranches and conserving productive agricultural lands. PORT is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, and in those two decades (and as of this recording), PORT organizations have helped more than 2,000 families conserve almost 3.2 million acres of productive working lands across the West.

In this episode, I chat with three executive directors of PORT-affiliated organizations, two of which have been on the podcast before. You’ll recognize Chad Ellis of the Texas Agricultural Land Trust (TALT), and Erik Glenn of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust. And new to the podcast is Michael Delbar, who leads the California Rangeland Trust. I’ve known all three of these guys for many years now, and I have long admired the ways that they lead their respective organizations. But perhaps even more impressive to me is how they have worked as a team with all nine PORT organizations to increase the scale, influence, and effectiveness of large-scale, working lands conservation.

I don’t think I’ve ever recorded an episode this early in the morning– we squeezed it in between an early morning breakfast and PORT’s board meeting. Just the day before, we had all been at TALT’s Working Lands Innovation Summit on the Birdwell-Clark Ranch in Henrietta, Texas, which was a huge success. So this was a great time to reflect on the importance of working lands, and we covered a lot: The Working Lands Innovation Summit and the importance of spending time out on the land; the history and purpose of PORT, the growth of additive conservation projects; private lands conservation as an economic driver; hard work; innovation; the importance of advocating for conservation in Washington DC; future plans for PORT, and much more. As you’ll hear, I start out chatting with Chad and Erik, and then Michael steps in for Erik about halfway through and shares his valuable perspective.

A huge thanks to TALT for inviting me to Texas and another huge thanks to all the PORT organizations and landowner partners who have had such a positive and significant impact on the landscapes of the West.

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Header photo courtesy of the California Rangeland Trust