By Ethan Gordon, Ada P. Smith, Jennifer Hodbod, Hannah Gosnell, Austin Himes, and Matías Hargreaves-Méndez

A rancher sees her herd through her worldviews and values. Promoting regeneration as a guiding value might mobilise more people to protect rangelands than only ensuring specific practices and/or outcomes. Illustration credit:Hannah Cox.

This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.

Rangelands include multiple ecosystems like tundra, deserts, savannahs, and shrublands. Globally, human activities threaten rangelands. In the United States, rangelands make up one-third of the land area and ranchers, who make a livelihood grazing livestock, predominantly manage them. 

Managing rangelands in a sustainable way is an ongoing debate in ranching. ‘Regenerative ranching’ is at the forefront of this but there is confusion on its definition. Some definitions focus on practices like rotating livestock and others on outcomes like increasing biodiversity. We stood back from this and asked ranchers what the broader concept of regeneration – not regenerative ranching – meant to them.  

We interviewed 59 ranchers across the United States. Some called themselves regenerative but didn’t undertake practices typically associated with regenerative ranching. Others did undertake practices associated with regenerative ranching but did not call themselves regenerative. Others were interested in learning more or completely indifferent. Regardless, many described ‘regeneration’ as a value.  

Values are general moral principles that guide peoples’ decisions, for example, ‘justice’ or ‘compassion’. Researchers have looked at the values associated with regenerative ranching, but no study has shown how regeneration itself could be a value. So, we explored what makes up regeneration (the value).

Firstly, ranchers had a desire to improve the land and defined that as restoring biodiversity and native habitats. Second, they believed that regeneration was a natural process where living things were cycled and rejuvenated either seasonally or generationally. Third, ranchers let nature do the regenerating. The process was bigger than them as individuals and whilst they could participate in it, they could not control it. Finally, participating in regeneration made them better ranchers and was an important part of living a meaningful life.

The value of regeneration is distinct from regenerative ranching. For a long time, the term has been used in other sectors including conservation, economics, tourism, and development. It is consequently possible that it is also held as a value beyond ranching. We propose that promoting regeneration as a guiding value, distinct from practices and outcomes, might be a more powerful way to mobilise people to protect rangelands.