Brown and McDonald detect a one-sided presentation of data and opinions on livestock grazing in an issue of Conservation Biology (Fleischner 1994; Noss 1994; Weurthner 1994). Much as been written about the relationship between science and advocacy. Conservation biology developed from roots in the basic biological sciences. According to Brown and McDonald, most of us are interested in conservation biology, however, because we have a love of wild places and the wild organisms that live in them. If we want to preserve these things, we must become advocates of practices and policies that will prevent their destruction and degradation. If we want to continue to claim that conservation biology is a science, however, we must also approach even highly controversial issues such as livestock grazing on western rangelands with scientific objectivity and rigor. Brown and Allen disagree with both the scientific interpretations and the anti-grazing advocacy in the recent articles by Fleischner (1994), Noss (1994), and Weurthner (1994), but they most emphatically agree with Editor Noss' call for better and more science to inform management and policy.
Citations and enhanced abstracts for journals articles and documents focused on rangeland ecology and management. RSIS is a collaboration between Montana State University, University of Idaho, and University of Wyoming.