Project Overview
Background:
Bringing together social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and farmers, Sustainable EweMass is a collaborative, cross-campus, interdisciplinary project using sheep as a touchpoint for thinking about the past, present, and future at UMass Amherst and beyond. The project offers an opportunity for students, faculty, staff and the broader community to collectively explore the multiple dimensions of land management and animal husbandry, their environmental and social impacts, and issues of social justice, community and access to the natural world. Sustainable EweMass engages in the spaces of environmental education, community-scale sustainability, wildlife biology and ecology, farming, art history and landscape architecture.
Research Goals:
Related specifically to research, Sustainable EweMass explores several questions, including:
Within our campus community, who uses outdoor spaces the most? How do historical and modern patterns of inequitable access to nature contribute to anxiety and stress in our students, staff and faculty? How do our decisions related to land management affect ecological health? Is the land of our public university used in ways that serve the needs of our campus and broader community?
Grazing lawnscape management (GLM) uses plant-munching livestock, typically sheep, to manage grass or lawn areas thereby providing a more sustainable alternative to modern lawn maintenance systems that require fossil-fuel based equipment, fertilizers and/or pesticides. In addition to the potential environmental effects of an herbivore-based lawn care system, introducing sheep into the urban greenscape may provide social and mental health benefits as well.
One dimension of our research aims to compare the two different maintenance regimes (GLM and modern), with respect to their potential effects on:
- Plant diversity and composition,
- Microbial activity,
- Soil fertility,
- Soil compaction,
- Wildlife diversity, and
- Mental health and well-being
Why Sheep?
Sheep are grazers and will eat many plants including various grasses, legumes and forbs (plants that have leaves but no wood). In fact, before the lawn mower was created, sheep and the scythe were the main tools for keeping lawns and yards tidy. Goats, on the other hand, are browsers and love to climb. They will often reach for leaves or shrubs at or above chin level and are therefore less useful for our campus green spaces.
- Prescribed grazing is a wildlife habitat management tool used to gradually increase vertical habitat structure, maintain early successional habitat types (relatively rare now in New England), reduce invasive species, and improve soil health and structure (dung can act as a fertilizer). In fact, light grazing is sometimes performed in combination with other management tools such as prescribed fire to reduce fuel loads beforehand and mitigate fire severity. Because animals are selective in what they eat (unlike lawn mowers), they can create a patchy mosaic of vegetation that supports differing plant species which has the potential to increase plant diversity and composition.
- The Climate and Economic Benefits of Rotational Livestock Grazing
- For the Love of the Wild: Livestock Pastures as Wildlife Habitat
- Grazing for wildlife, livestock involves many factors
- Managing Grazing to Improve Climate Resilience
- Agroforestry is the regenerative technique getting overlooked in the U.S.
- Rotational, low density grazing with various native and domestic species has been used in agricultural settings for hundreds of years and is now categorized as a type of agroforestry known as silvopasture. This intentional combination of livestock and trees in agricultural production has numerous benefits including carbon sequestration. The UMass Carbon Farming Initiative and The Stockbridge Livestock program are leaders in silvopasture and provide opportunities for students to train in regenerative livestock models and community supported agriculture systems (see their Meat CSA program)!
- Check out this article, "The return of silvopasture" by Liz Carlisle
- Check out this article, "Pastoralists are an asset to the world--and we have a lot to learn from them" by Ian Scoones
- Goat browsing has been shown to be particularly helpful in reducing fuel loads (e.g. french broom, scotch broom, coyote brush, low trees, poison ivy) thereby helping to mitigate wildfire severity. Please take a look at the work that Star Creek Land Stewards are doing out west!
- Sheep provide more than just a mowing alternative. As livestock, they provide milk, meat and fiber products (e.g. wool) and thereby provide a more holistic and sustainable source for many of our basic human needs. In fact, wool is at the center of the modern movement towards sustainable fashion---a response to the non-renewable, petroleum-based “fast fashion” that most of us rely on.
- Interdisciplinary projects and research objectives Students and the community have been invited to see connections between history, culture and current regenerative farming efforts at work on campus. In particular, understanding the sheep history of New England provides a context for the current farming practices burgeoning in the area. In fact, our last graze intentionally highlighted traditional skill sets and community expertise in fiber arts; carding, spinning, and dyeing, which invites people to think about how and where their basic needs are met (e.g. food and clothing). In addition, we have just recently submitted applications for grant funding to increase our capacity for independent study research projects investigating the effects of grazing on plant diversity and composition, soil and microbial health as well as sense of belonging. The potential for continued partnership between The Hadley Farm, Department of Art and Architecture, Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of History, and the Stockbridge School is truly limitless and benefits all of our undergraduate students by asking them to examine environmental issues from a range of disciplinary lenses.
- Contact with nature and human interactions with animals has profound mental health and well-being effects Reconnecting our community to nature and outdoors is critically important- steps are underway to try and quantify the emotional benefits of time outdoors, watching the sheep graze. Students have mentioned how watching the sheep graze has a calming effect. Writers such as Aldo Leopold and Andrea Wulf often make the point that to make some of the societal changes needed to address our environmental issues, we need to re-connect people to nature, to help us all understand that we are a part of nature, not separate from it. Efforts such as Sustainable EweMass, give students and faculty pause to think about the landscape and how we relate to it and take care of it. Regular opportunities to watch animals like sheep graze may indeed reduce stress, anxiety and loneliness in our campus community:
- Frumkin, H., et al. Nature Contact and Human Health: A Research Agenda. Environmental Health Perspectives 125(7), 07501:1 – 07501:18. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp1663
- Katcher AH, Friedmann E, Beck AM, Lynch JJ. Looking, talking and blood pressure: The physiological consequences of interaction with the living environment. In: Katcher AH, Beck AM (Ed.). New perspectives on our lives with companion animals. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; 1983.
- Beetz, A., Uvnäs-Moberg, K., Julius, H., and Kotrschal, K. (2012). Psychosocial and psychophysiological effects of human-animal interactions: the possible role of oxytocin. Front. Psychol. 3:234. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.0023
- Multifunctional public spaces are important. Rather than monocultures of grass, our public green spaces (often a strong component of university campuses) should accommodate human recreation, relaxation as well as providing important wildlife habitat and sustainable sources of fiber and meat. In addition, there are many logistical and practical benefits in terms of being able to better manage topographically complex areas (steep slopes, remote terrain) with livestock rather than sending human crews to these locations. We are not the only campus-affiliated program!
- Please check out our sister program, UC Davis Sheepmowers: https://www.sheepmowers.org/
- Lawns are bad for the environment, right? We agree that more native plant-focused landscaping or even no-mow areas (already a part of campus facilities plan) should be part of the conversation. However, it is unlikely that university campuses will replace all of their lawns given how important these community gathering spaces are for student engagement and public events or activities that often include families with young children. In addition, some areas need to remain accessible for those with physical or mobility issues therefore no-mow, meadow plantings are not an appropriate choice for the entire campus.
- A key part of this effort has been to raise awareness about our connection with the land. Typically, people expect to see a large greensward in parks, campuses, and around houses. Sustainable EWEMass is interested in sparking conversations about what else those greenswards could be. At present they are energy and chemical intensive, but acclimatizing folks to sheep goes some way to encouraging a different vision of the landscape, one which is fecund and inviting, while also productive of healthy soil, environmentally friendly materials for clothing and shelter, lanolin for moisturizing, and locally sourced meat and milk.