Ranching family proactive about conservation

Larry Parker believes in active conservation to make the land and water better. Ranchers know that conservation in action can be costly and it takes dedication to see it through, especially when you are dealing with multiple interests and landowners, but he is focused on making it work. The Parker Ranch is located just south of San Simon, along the Chiricahua Mountains. The Parker family took over the ownership and operation of the ranch in the 1990s and faces the challenges of mixed interests head on. The ranch consists of a blend of state lease, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and private lands. With the Healthy Lands Partnership (HLP) and the Borderlands Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI), two conservation programs available through the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and the BLM, the Parker family has an opportunity to achieve multiple conservation goals that would otherwise be cost prohibitive. They plan to decrease undesirable invasive shrubs, improve vegetative cover and species diversity, and decrease habitat fragmentation, while supporting working lands productivity. This work is done cooperatively with the help of the agencies as well as the Willcox Natural Resource Conservation District and the Arizona State Land Department...more