While many ranching families have been forced to sell their land and herds, the Phillips have been refining a vision to sustain their family far into the future.
Increasingly, real estate prices have driven many families out of ranching, adding to a long list of pressures and challenges from weather to politics.
Growing up on a ranch, Duke learned to work with leather to make basic saddle repairs. Now, the Chico Basin Ranch has a leather shop that makes goods in partnership with Filson.
Duke Phillips IV learned how to work large ranches during a stint working in Australia. He brought innovative strategies home, including learning to fly a helicopter to speed up herd movements.
The Phillips family works with Beefmaster cattle, a breed developed in America that is adapted to the environment of the prairie unlike older breeds which require ranchers to adapt the ranch to the cattle.
The American prairie was shaped in part by bison and it thrives when it is churned periodically by ungulate hooves. The Phillips family uses a cattle herding method to optimize that impact that seems to be improving the quality of the land and encouraging increased carbon sequestration.
Duke Phillips III and his family are on a mission to preserve their ranching heritage and conserve western prairie land by building an environmentally and economically sustainable cattle business. I spent a few days on the Chico Basin Ranch in Colorado's Front Range. Duke won the lease for the land in 1999 from the Colorado State Land Board and has spent the last 20 years raising his family and growing his herd while working in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. I was drawn to their story because they have actively positioned themselves to help bridge the divide between urban and rural Americans. City people stay in the guest house and learn how to brand and rope, while the Phillips' neighbors attend conferences on sustainable range management.
