I am over half way through my time here at the BLM in Baker City. There is rhythm to our team as field sites and protocols become familiar. Stream channel assessments have changed up the routine a bit though with new techniques like plant identification!

We started off by attending training on multiple indicator monitoring (known hereafter as MIM) for riparian systems. The focus of MIM is quantifying the impacts of grazing on streams from bank stability to plant composition. The training brought people from a variety of backgrounds from range management to geo engineering. MIM has a holistic approach, attempting to account for all forms alterations. While alterations are examined individually, their potential relationships are examined in the final analysis. In the field, we discussed these connections as we practiced the methods of MIM. I found it intriguing to examine the morphology of streams as well as riparian vegetation.

Conducting MIMs on our own sites has been a real eye opener. Our first stream was in poor condition with highly eroding banks and little plant biomass left after cattle are taken off. It is shocking and disheartening to hear from my mentor how difficult it can be to have the grazing reduced on such allotments. It is a consequence of a working landscape. Ranchers often depend on free range grazing in the summer and cannot feed the cattle sufficiently otherwise. However, the impairment of these valuable ecosystems is gaining notice as evident by the growing importance of MIM in BLM.

I often find myself struggling with the complex and seemingly conflictingly commitments of the BLM. The reconciliation of conservation and resource utilization has been a subject of many a class or book of mine, yet the challenges are something I feel I am only beginning to grasp. It is easy to ignore when sites are part of large swaths of conserved land like some of our streams (see below), but it is evident in these highly degraded streams that there is still much to be done.