2004 Annual Report for SW02-051
A Range Management Curriculum and Participatory Planning Project for the Tohono O'odham Nation
Summary
The unique social, cultural, and historical circumstances of livestock grazing on the Tohono O’odham Nation require that concepts from Rangeland Science be tailored to the specific biophysical and cultural landscapes on the Tohono O’odham Nation. We believe that resource management is most effective when local resource users are directly involved in management planning and implementation. To advance our goal of better stewardship using a culturally specific, community-based approach, we propose a project combining the creation of educational opportunities through the development and implementation of a rangeland curriculum with the application of concepts from rangeland science through a participatory planning process.
Objectives/Performance Targets
Objective 1: To develop and implement a Tohono O’odham range management curriculum that incorporates both science and traditional knowledge, and which reflects the specific social, cultural, political, economic and environmental contexts of livestock husbandry and range management on the Tohono O’odham Nation. This will be done using a collaborative approach involving O’odham livestock owners, natural resource professionals, educators and community members.
Objective 2: To empower livestock producers and other community members to develop and implement range management plans for their communities by expanding the existing participatory rangeland planning pilot project to additional districts.
Accomplishments/Milestones
Rangeland Management Curriculum
After more than a year of planning within the Tohono O’odham Curriculum Advisory Committee, we successfully piloted the Tohono O’odham Rangeland Curriculum as a series of 8 one-day workshops from October 2003 to May 2004, covering the following topics: 1) History of O’odham Rangelands, 2) Rangeland Ecology in the Desert, 3) Animal Health & Management, 4) Grazing Management & Erosion Control, 5) Vegetation Monitoring, 6) Rangeland Planning, 7) Business Management & Economics, and 8) Drought Planning & Management. More than 130 participants, including livestock owners, elders, political leaders, natural resource managers, and youth, attended the workshops that each included indoor and field presentations. More than 60 participants attended two or more workshops with an average of 35 participants at each one. Each workshop also included local history presented by the hosting livestock association or tribal natural resource program. With a total of 60 high quality presentations, more than 50% were given by O’odham. Although the workshops were geared primarily for an adult audience, families felt it was important to involve their children in natural resource issues. As a result, we organized concurrent activities for youth during many of the workshops, including nature walks, erosion demonstrations, and art projects. We also held one overnight fishing trip and camp-out for kids the night before the one of the workshops.
To thank the many people involved in this project, to reflect on the accomplishments of the past year, and to look ahead to future partnerships, we held an awards banquet for all participants in the project on June 11, 2004. A report summarizing key themes and learning from the workshops was presented to participants at the awards banquet. As strong partners in this project, The Tohono O’odham Natural Resources Department and the Tohono O’odham Community College have expressed a commitment to continue the free natural resource workshops and further develop the Rangeland Curriculum into an Agriculture & Natural Resources degree program at the Tohono O’odham Community College.
As part of her MS thesis research, student Jennifer Arnold conducted a qualitative and participatory evaluation of the curriculum planning and implementation project. Ms. Arnold, who also served as the curriculum coordinator for the project, took notes during the workshops and related planning meetings, and conducted interviews with participants as part of her data gathering. A common theme throughout the project has been the fundamental importance of collaboration, cooperation, and education to sustainable natural resource management on the Tohono O’odham Nation. Ms. Arnold used a social capital framework to analyze the different types of cooperation that O’odham have described as important to their way of raising livestock and managing the land. Using a participatory research approach, Ms. Arnold presented her research and evaluation proposal to the curriculum advisory committee before the pilot curriculum implementation began, and presented her preliminary results to the group for extensive review and comment after the last workshop was completed. Based on this participatory research and evaluation, we concluded that the curriculum project was successful in building social capital, which was primarily a result of the participation of a diversity of individuals. This research was presented by Ms. Arnold at the International Rangelands Congress (IRC) in Durban, South Africa (July 2003), at the Arizona Association for Environmental Education in Tucson, Arizona (September 2003) and at the International Symposium for Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) in Keystone, Colorado (June 2004). At the ISSRM, Ms. Arnold’s paper was awarded an Honorable Mention for the Best Student Paper. During the summer of 2004 Ms. Arnold will re-interview participants in the curriculum planning and implementation and complete data analysis. She plans to defend her thesis in fall 2004.
Participatory Planning Project
In January 2004, M.S. Student John Hays completed his thesis based on the Participatory Planning Project in the Sif-Oidak District of the Tohono O’odham Nation. This research was presented at the International Rangelands Congress in Durban, South Africa (July 2003). Several manuscripts based on this research are currently in preparation and will be submitted by December 2004.
The range management newsletter, the Range Writer, has successfully published five issues with articles on topics including history, ecology, management, and planning. The newsletter, distributed to more than 150 individuals, was useful in announcing the workshops and other natural resource activities.
Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes
- The workshop presentations and discussions have highlighted important issues on the Tohono O’odham Nation. Issues discussed include the history of O’odham livestock management, the history of Anglo & Mexican ranching on the Nation, a history of Bureau of Indian Affairs involvement in range management, the social and biological diversity of the Nation, the importance of cooperation to O’odham way of life, the challenge of communal land use, the different reasons that people own livestock, the challenge of border issues, opportunities for community land use planning and economic development, the connection between watershed condition and soil erosion, the importance of broad-based education, and the critical role of youth as future stewards of the land.
Interaction between livestock owners, natural resource agency personnel, educators, and political leaders has increased as individuals participate together in the workshops. There have been early signs of increased trust between livestock owners and natural resource managers on the Nation, and it appears that trend will continue as O’odham leadership in natural resource management on the Nation grows.
The Tohono O’odham Community College (TOCC) has already begun development of their Agriculture and Natural Resources Program at least in part due to the momentum and general interest created by this project. The college expects to offer its first natural resource class in Fall 2004 and plans to add one or two new classes every semester for the next several years. In partnership with the Tohono O’odham Natural Resources Department, TOCC hopes to continue this style of interactive workshops to raise awareness of natural resource issues on the Nation.
The social research conducted by M.S. student Jennifer Arnold makes an important contribution to Cooperative Extension. Although still in its preliminary stages, her research emphasizes the importance of building social capital and forming relationships as part of an educational outreach program, instead of simply providing educational materials. Sustainable management on the Tohono O’odham Nation requires more than simply implementing conservation practices. It requires good communication, broad-based education, and cooperation to sustain the hard work and commitment that sustainable natural resource management requires. In the next several months, Ms. Arnold will work toward finishing this research for her master’s thesis and any subsequent publications.
In addition to the completion of the Participatory Planning Project for the Sif-Oidak District in May of 2003, M.S. student John Hays, Jr. completed his masters thesis based upon his work with the planning project in June 2004. His research combined local knowledge of rangeland and animal adaptations and behaviors in the arid Sif-Oidak District with interviews and participant observation on livestock management practices and ecological research examining the influence of varying grazing intensities on perennial forage grass densities in the Sif-Oidak District. He concluded that grazing at current stocking rates has little influence upon perennial forage grasses and that future rangeland management efforts should focus on the maintenance of palatable shrubs rather than rotational grazing schemes aimed at increasing production of perennial grasses. A second conclusion was that the existing livestock management strategies developed by O’odham cattle owners are well suited for the environment, given the heterogeneous resource and extreme variability in available water and forage resources. These findings suggest that schemes to promote individual tenure or “range unit” approaches to rangeland management may be counter-productive in the socio-ecological context of Sif-Oidak. A more appropriate approach might be to build on and strengthen existing institutions for inter- and intra-village cooperation, such as village round-ups. Mr. Hays’ results have been presented to a number of tribal members and are presently being considered by natural resource managers in policy making positions on the Nation. We expect several manuscripts based on this research to be submitted to journals by December 2004.
Both the participatory planning project and the curriculum project have been successful in building local and tribal capacity in natural resource management:
At the local level, the Sif-Oidak planning project led to successful applications for EQIP funding by more than half of the 9 villages in the district. In addition, participants in the planning project and key political leaders from the Sif-Oidak District have been closely involved in the curriculum project, sharing their learning with other districts on the Nation through the workshop series.
Many attendees at the workshops were local or tribal political leaders who expressed appreciation for the opportunity to learn more about the Nation’s rangeland resources and their management.
O’odham staff of the tribal natural resources department and the NRCS Sells office were key participants in the curriculum project and participated actively in organizing and presenting the workshops. For many of the staff members, most of whom do not have formal education natural resources, this was excellent experience. These participants also served as role models for other workshop participants including the youth who attended. Several of these individuals have expressed interest in pursuing higher education in natural resources, and specifically in rangeland management, encouraged to do so by their involvement in this project.
Finally, both the curriculum and participatory planning projects increased linkages between the Tohono O’odham Nation, and O’odham individuals and communities, and financial and technical resources off the reservation. The close working relationship with University of Arizona Cooperative Extension appears to have significantly influenced the way that some participants view the University and University-sponsored research. In the words of one local leader who attended most of the workshops, “ The University doesn’t realize how important [these workshops] are to the University.” By taking a participatory approach that respects the diversity of goals for and approaches to livestock husbandry on the Nation, and seeks to highlight the unique ecological assets and dynamics of different districts on the Nation, these projects differ dramatically from past natural resource education and development interventions that took a “one size fits all” approach and were based on commercial livestock production and range management assumptions developed in very different social, cultural and ecological contexts. The response to this different approach is reflected in the enthusiasm of participants, the momentum to continue the workshops in the future and to develop a community college curriculum based on them, and the local support for and interest in the research associated with each of the projects.