BLM announces 2025 Rangeland Stewardship and Innovations Award winners

BLM announces 2025 Rangeland Stewardship and Innovations Award winners

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Bureau of Land Management is naming winners of the 2025 Rangeland Stewardship and Rangeland Innovations awards, which recognize exemplary management and outstanding accomplishments in restoring and maintaining the health of public rangelands.

The bureau will present the awards on Sept. 17, at a ceremony hosted by the Public Lands Council during its 57th Annual Meeting, held this year in Flagstaff, Ariz., and via Zoom from 12-1:30 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (please join 5-10 minutes early).

The BLM and Public Lands Council continue a 20-year partnership to honor BLM livestock grazing permittees and lessees who demonstrate exceptional management, collaboration, and communication that restores, conserves, or enhances our public lands, and to recognize their accomplishments at a gathering of their peers.

"The BLM partners with 18,000 permittees to manage livestock grazing on about 21,000 allotments covering 155 million acres of public lands; supporting about 36,000 jobs and generating $2.87 billion in annual economic output," said Acting BLM Director Bill Groffy. "These awardees represent collaborative, locally-led efforts to apply new technologies and grazing practices that will provide more flexibility to producers and improve rangeland health and public lands ecosystems."

"As federal lands ranchers, we all are partners with BLM in maintaining western landscapes and raising our livestock with the best available methods. Livestock grazing creates robust habitat, prevents catastrophic wildfires, and produces wholesome consumer products, the benefits are numerous, but it takes a tremendous amount of hard work," said Public Lands Council President and Colorado permittee Tim Canterbury. "This is not an easy job, and it only gets tougher every year - but these award recipients have proven their ranching and conservation prowess beyond any doubt. PLC congratulates these award winners, and I am personally honored to share this profession and our traditions with them."

The Rangeland Stewardship Awards recognize the demonstrated use of beneficial management practices to restore, protect, or enhance rangeland resources while working with the BLM and other partners.

• The 2025 Rangeland Stewardship Award - Permittee Category winner is the Molsbee family of Cottonwood Ranch in Wells, Nev., nominated by the Wells Field Office, BLM Nevada
  
  This sixth-generation beef and horse ranch includes 36,000 acres of federal grazing permits in northeast Nevada. It has been a cornerstone of the local community and economy for over 60 years and is currently home to four generations. Family patriarch Agee Smith has served in local, county, and state conservation district and commission leadership roles since the 1980s. His daughter and son in law, McKenzie and Jason Molsbee, are incorporating new technologies as they raise their sons to apply sustainable ranching operations.
  
  In partnership with the University of Nevada Reno, BLM, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they have spent five years refining virtual fencing technology and are now using their fifth-generation collar design. The ranch has significantly improved ecosystem health, restored riparian areas, expanded redband trout habitat, and boosted beaver and moose activity while more than doubling cattle stocking rates.

The Rangeland Innovations Awards recognize outstanding examples of demonstrated creativity, willingness to embrace change, and/or a modified perspective or approach to persistent rangeland stewardship challenges in addition to the accomplishments meriting the Rangeland Stewardship Award.

• The 2025 Rangeland Innovations Award - Permittee Category winner is the Sanders and Davies families of Roaring Springs Ranch in Frenchglen, Ore., nominated by the Burns and Lakeview district offices, BLM Oregon/Washington.
  
  Roaring Springs Ranch is a beef operation on over a million acres of deeded land and BLM grazing allotments between 4.5-8 thousand feet in elevation of high desert in southeast Oregon. The ranch has participated in the BLM's outcome-based grazing authorization initiative since 2016. Their approach blends long-standing land stewardship with modern science and technology, improving outcomes for both livestock and natural resources.
  
  The ranch partners with agencies and universities including the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, University of Nevada-Reno, Brigham Young University, and Oregon State University including their Northern Great Basin Agricultural Research Station. From tracking sage grouse and mule deer to studying cheatgrass management, their decisions are grounded in science that supports abundant wildlife, clean water, and open spaces.
  
• The 2025 Rangeland Innovations Award - Collaborative Team Category winner is the Massey Ranch Precision Ranching and Virtual Fencing Project of Animas, N.M., nominated by the Las Cruces District Office, BLM New Mexico.
  
  This project represents a significant advancement in sustainable agriculture and conservation practices, particularly focusing on the enhancement of rangeland stewardship, native plants, and wildlife habitat. It is a collaboration with the Massey family of Massey Ranch, New Mexico State University's Jornada Experimental Range, Dr. Santiago Utsumi with NMSU's Department of Animal and Range Science, Bat Conservation International, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, Sierra Soil and Water Conservation District, and the BLM's Abandoned Mine Lands Program and Las Cruces District Office.
  
  The project applies emerging technologies to manage grazing while minimizing environmental impact to public lands. Ranchers use virtual fencing to direct livestock movement more effectively and target grazing to promote pasture recovery and enhance native vegetation. The project uses a custom real-time overview dashboard with remote and local sensor systems to monitor livestock, water, and weather across 30,000 acres of arid rangeland in southwest New Mexico.

The Public Lands Council represents the cattle and sheep producers who hold approximately 22,000 public lands grazing permits. Federal grazing permit holders provide essential food and fiber resources to the nation, as well as important land management services like the eradication of invasive species, mitigation of wildfire risk, and conservation of vital wildlife habitat. The Public Lands Council works in active partnership with the BLM, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and local land management offices to make landscapes more resilient across the West.