Development of the Malpai Science Program A 10-year grant Early on, the Malpai decided that good science would be necessary for resolving several of the uncertainties about resource management issues in the Borderlands. The Group wanted to use rigorous science as the basis for its decisions. According to rancher and Malpai Borderlands Group Executive Director, Bill McDonald: “[We] wanted the best and most credible scientists in the U.S. working with us…If the information and research is honest and unbiased, we’ll let the chips fall where they may” (from Cook 2001 in Wolf 2001). Rather than seek out rangeland experts, the Group looked for scientists with no connections to ranching. They also decided that experimental science should take priority over observational science and that experiments should take place at a large scale so that the results would be meaningful to management decisions. In 1994, the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station received a 4 million dollar National Ecosystem Management Grant for the Southwestern Borderlands Ecosystem Management Research Project (SBEM) in which $400,000 would be annually available for ten years. Representatives from several agencies, university researchers, and the Malpai put the proposal together. SBEM’s goal was to use science to inform the development and implementation of a comprehensive ecosystem management plan for the Malpai Borderlands. The project had three objectives: 1) summarize and synthesize existing information, 2) develop a comprehensive landscape inventory and monitoring system to serve research and management needs, and 3) identify specific research studies to fill priority knowledge gaps.
44