Keystone species—a species whose importance is disproportionate to its numbers. Ranchers and ranching are both an occupation and a process that encompass the realities of the American West. As the landscape of the West is blended, half public and half private, ranching builds connections between public and private lands, and between rural and urban communities. Ranching works well, ecologically, economically, and culturally. If ranching declines rather than prospers, so too will the health of human and natural communities decline.
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