(wind) (music)
[Male Singer] Don't be shy, 'cause I,
I think you're beautiful and I won't let you forget it.
[Male Voice] Right now the cattle, they still have their winter clothes on.
Their waiting spring as we all are.
(cow moo)
[Male Singer] And life won't bring you down too far 'cause
I just won't let it.
[Robert Potts] Water Foundation's purpose is healthy watersheds
through good land management.
That's what we work on.
Every raindrop starts hitting land.
Managing the land is the critical component in making sure that we have enough water and
the kind of water that we want going forward.
(walking in dry grass)
[Robert Potts] It's only the rain that goes into the ground
that really you're able to take advantage of.
This ranch is located right next to the town of Marfa.
It's a high desert grassland in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert.
The Foundation started out with our north Texas ranch bringing back plowed fields to
native grasslands.
And, we wanted to try in a drier climate.
So what's easy to happen in the drier environments is that you lose your ground cover.
And you're left with bare ground which is like having no skin on the earth.
And so what we've been able to achieve out here with our grazing system is getting the
ground covered with these good lower grasses.
It allows the water to absorb better, and you get more carbon sequestration, you get
better wildlife habitat, and it even goes on and creates better forage for the cattle.
(cow moo) (music)
[Robert Potts] You've got to have disturbance in order to
continue a grassland.
What nature provided as one of those major disturbances was grazing animals.
The only tool that we use is cattle.
Where they're stomping on the ground, if there's bare ground they may be breaking up the crust
on the soil so seeds can get in.
They're putting their manure on the soil so they're fertilizing it.
And then by us moving them to a new area that grass and that area has a chance to recover.
(music)
This doesn't work if it doesn't show a profit, because nobody will do it.
So we try to make what we're doing here available to others, how it's working for us, and then
they can incorporate this into their own land management as they see fit.
(bird call)
We are seeing a huge number increase in birds, and in mammals.
This also is an important area for pronghorn.
It seems like the pronghorn come here to have their fawns.
(water) (music)
[Russell Martin] We're in the heart of the Chihuahuan Desert
on the Alamito Creek unit.
Just like all desert systems water is precious.
So to have a live flowing creek in the desert is a big deal.
We're seeing a tremendous response in terms of their avian community, the invertebrate
community, and the fish community all responding to the management that they've been doing.
(music)
It provides migratory stopover habitat for birds, it's providing habitat for fish.
Without this water here a lot of these species that we're finding on this property and in this system wouldn't
occur otherwise.
(wind) (music)
(cow moo)
[Clinton Josey] You can't manage land well without using livestock
of some kind.
So that means cows and in our case we have cows and sheep.
(sheep)
We graze it pretty hard.
We move the cattle every couple of days, and then let it rest.
That's just a tool to improve the land and to make it profitable.
Well I bought this ranch and I ran it up until about 2005 when I deeded it to the Dixon Water Foundation.
I wasn't doing too good, and then I heard about holistic management.
It really works. We did bring back the tallgrass prairie.
It also makes it more profitable to ranch of course with more grass.
So we were very, very happy with our planned grazing.
Roger Dixon formed the Dixon Water Foundation back in the 60's or 70's.
He set the mission, and I think he'd be pleased with what we've done in the Foundation.
(kids)
[Melissa Bookhout] We have workshops out here and we get kids
out here and teach them about our natural resources, what they are, and how to enjoy
them for the future generations.
The Josey Pavilion is a certified living building, and what that means is that it is a net-zero
energy building.
We just felt like the sustainable architecture of this building would coincide with out sustainable
agriculture that we want to teach.
[Steve Nelle] The Dixon Water Foundation is providing this
model and demonstration of what can be done with the land.
And this is kind of management we'd like to see duplicated and replicated all across Texas,
in a way that's appropriate for each region.
They're doing things that anyone can do, even with limited resources.
(music)
[Male Singer] Don't be shy, 'cause I, I think you're
beautiful and I'll tell you 'till you get it.
[Clinton Josey] Well I'd like to see the Foundation just go
on almost forever, to convince other people that it's the way to manage land.
With all of our technology and knowledge we only survive by what we can grow.
So we need to get it right.
We need better grasslands, that's a better way to feed ourselves.
The planned grazing does work.
Probably the most important thing I've ever done.
(music)