Are you interested in…

  • Enriching your animal’s health
  • Improving chore efficiency
  • Enhancing your land’s aesthetics
  • Improving safety
  • Reducing flies
  • And possibly even increasing your property’s value

Then the Livestock and Land Program
is for you!

We assist livestock property owners interested in implementing Best Management Practices (BMPs) through:

  • Free site visits and consultations
  • Workshops and trainings
  • Publications and brochures
  • Funding assistance for land improvements

Best Management Practices

Best Management Practices (BMPs) are practices that you can use on your land to address concerns such as erosion, drainage, mud and manure. By successfully managing these issues you can drastically improve the health of your property and local natural resources. In addition to addressing the challenges listed above, installing BMPs on your property can improve local water, land and air quality, boost neighborhood relationships and encourage community collaboration.

Wild horses might roam up to twenty-five miles a day for food, water and shelter. Their continual movement disperses manure and urine and allows for regrowth of vegetation. With domestic horses, owners provide food and safe shelter. Consequently these practices can unintentionally damage delicate surface and ground water supplies and have detrimental effects on our local water and land resources, recreational activities and the environment.

To see examples of implemented BMPs click here

Program History

Nutrients, pathogens and sediments from livestock facilities are pollutants of concern in watersheds throughout California. This pollution critically impacts our drinking water, recreation areas, fisheries health and flora and fauna habitat. Better management of manure and drainage on properties that house livestock can lessen these pollutants.

To address these challenges, the State Water Resources Control Board awarded grant funding to create the Livestock and Land Program. The program aims to achieve immediate and lasting water quality and watershed improvements by educating livestock owners on Best Management Practices (BMPs). The educational opportunities are conveyed via workshops, technical trainings and demonstration projects through a non-regulatory and voluntary approach. By raising the awareness in the community we will achieve the cultural changes necessary for healthy livestock and watershed management.

Ecology Action, an Environmental Non-Profit Organization, was invited to participate in the Livestock and Land pilot program by the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County. As a result of the initial success of the pilot program, Ecology Action and local Resource Conservation Districts have partnered to deliver programming throughout California’s Central Coast. Efforts are continuing to identify funding sources to maintain existing programming and expand program successes throughout the entire state of California and beyond.