Unprecedented climatic and economic uncertainty, in particular severe drought, calls for management that can preclude some of the costs of reactionary measures for California ranchers. Increasing adaptive capacity has been widely recommended to address such uncertainty. Within this context, holistic management (HM), a decision-making framework marketed for ranchers, is of interest because it emphasizes systems-based thinking, maximizing flexibility and adaptability, ecological monitoring, soil health, and goal setting. Many HM ranchers use adaptive multipaddock (AMP) grazing management, characterized by the combination of moderate to high animal stock densities, fast rotations, pasture rest, iterative monitoring, and adaptive management. We interviewed a small group of AMP-HM ranchers in northern California to 1) examine how their on-the-ground implementation of AMP grazing relates to mental models for rangeland grazing as shaped by HM, including embedded decision-making processes, motivations, barriers, and catalysts; and 2) understand how AMP-HM ranchers believe the strategy helps them respond to increasing challenges. Our findings suggest that first, AMP-HM shifted ranchers’ mental models through its emphasis on monitoring combined with increased interaction with land and animals, changing the ways interviewees saw and understood their management. Second, through its decision-making framework and trainings, AMP-HM increased ranchers’ agency to operationalize new mental models. Together, these two facets culminated in a common suite of strategies that interviewees viewed as key to ranching profitably and sustainably. These include building flexibility into herd sizes and structures to increase temporal and spatial mobility, diversifying ranch enterprises to increase financial flexibility, building soil health, and reducing input costs—all of which have been recommended in rangeland management practices for decades. These findings suggest that AMP-HM, as an integrated package of rangeland management and decision-making practices, accompanied by education and training, may hold promise in helping ranchers strengthen their adaptive capacity and cope with uncertainty.

中文翻译：

---

整体管理改变牧场主的心理模式，以实现成功的适应性放牧

前所未有的气候和经济不确定性，特别是严重干旱，要求管理层能够消除加州牧场主因采取反动措施而付出的一些代价。人们广泛建议提高适应能力来解决这种不确定性。在此背景下，整体管理（HM），一种面向牧场主的决策框架，受到人们的关注，因为它强调基于系统的思维、最大限度地提高灵活性和适应性、生态监测、土壤健康和目标设定。许多 HM 牧场主采用适应性多围场 (AMP) 放牧管理，其特点是结合中等到高牲畜密度、快速轮作、牧场休息、迭代监测和适应性管理。我们采访了加利福尼亚州北部的一小群 AMP-HM 牧场主，以 1) 检查他们的 AMP 放牧实地实施与 HM 塑造的牧场放牧心理模型有何关系，包括嵌入式决策过程、动机、障碍和催化剂； 2) 了解 AMP-HM 牧场主如何相信该策略可以帮助他们应对日益严峻的挑战。我们的研究结果表明，首先，AMP-HM 通过强调监控并增加与土地和动物的互动，改变了牧场主的思维模式，改变了受访者看待和理解其管理的方式。其次，通过其决策框架和培训，AMP-HM 增强了牧场主实施新思维模式的能动性。这两个方面最终形成了一套共同的策略，受访者认为这是牧场盈利和可持续发展的关键。这些措施包括建立牛群规模和结构的灵活性以增加时间和空间的流动性、使牧场企业多样化以增加财务灵活性、建立土壤健康以及降低投入成本——所有这些都在几十年来的牧场管理实践中得到了推荐。这些发现表明，AMP-HM 作为牧场管理和决策实践的综合方案，辅之以教育和培训，可能有望帮助牧场主增强适应能力并应对不确定性。