Calvert’s ranching philosophy is a return to the simple cowboy code of showing respect for the land and its animals. The real definition of a cowboy is somebody who takes care of cows. There's such a fine line between making an animal respect you and getting a horse or cow to do what you need it to do. There's a respect for their nature and their instinct and learning how to interact with them. The same thing with the land. It's bringing all these natural elements together to achieve a purpose. That really defines what the American cowboy is.

At The High Lonesome Ranch, Calvert is dedicated to showing his respect by protecting it from being overrun by human 
interference. “We can't keep pushing the land to its maximum,” he explains. We need to find ways to rejuvenate it and protect it. For 
Calvert, regenerative ranching offers the best solution to protecting the land and he hopes to offer a new perspective on sustainable cattle ranching to those who are unfamiliar with its benefits. Calvert explains, As it starts looking healthier, I think the perception of cattle will change over time. There are problems we're going to have to deal with. But in the end, most of the time, research shows that when you just remove cows, remove the animal impact from an area, it ends up less healthy than when they were there. I think 
using cattle to regenerate the land is the way of the future and changing the perception of cattle in general will preserve the American cowboy's legacy far more than any other part.

At The High Lonesome Ranch, Calvert and his crew’s sustainable practices are based on traditional methods of ranching that help promote new growth on the land. It’s a rewarding but challenging process, especially on the land where The High Lonesome Ranch is situated. This is a 225,000-acre ranch, mostly BLM and some deeded ground, a lot of desert and high desert, some mountainous terrain. It's very complicated to implement traditional regenerative agriculture on the land here, says Calvert.

Calvert and his crew have adapted to the challenges using creative techniques. He explains, We’re moving away from small 
electric fence paddocks to create the density and are focusing more on a combination of bale grazing and day grazing and some electric fencing. And we have a topography for it with big canyons where we can run an electric line from end to end and hold the cattle in a rectangular shaped piece with canyons jutting off the side. So, while we're still using electric fencing to create the density, we can also use horses to push them up into canyons and into areas where we want to hold them there for an appropriate period of time and then let them flow back down and move them the next day.

In this way, Calvert and his crew can manage the animals using a blend of modern and traditional ranching practices that work together to benefit the health of the land overall. I call it regen on range, says Calvert. We're really trying to bridge the traditional cowboy ways with modern land management and set a standard for how that can be done that's appealing to the average cowboy 
and the average person that wants to get on a horse and be on the land but doesn't want to build four-sided paddocks every day. The truth is, a lot of this land is completely inhospitable to that concept, so we're trying to bridge what you can do on flatter land or even irrigated fields with true range management, but in a way that is promoting good soil health.

Through regenerative ranching, The High Lonesome Ranch has developed a cattle management system where the land, animals, and cowboys like Calvert work together in a system where nature is always first. Instead of looking at the land as a commodity, it's really your number one resource. The highest priority in taking care of the land is protecting the soil. We leave 50% of the feed because that allows the roots to maintain their strength. It also prevents the sun from baking the soil which kills the insects, fungi, and bacteria that create a better balance underneath. That promotes really good insect life and root life. It creates an ecosystem under the soil that helps the grass grow which reduces the growth of the brush and the cacti. It’s mimicking how groups of bison and elk would travel across the land. It’s promoting the way nature was intended to work.

Every day that Lloyd Calvert and the ranchers at The High Lonesome Ranch dedicate their lives to understanding the movement of cattle and the growth of the plants, they are learning from the land and developing ways to help it prosper. They are paving the way for future generations to care for the land effectively in an ever-changing world. And most importantly, they are living out the values of the West to be stewards of the land, respect nature and one another, and leave the land better than they found it.

I think a lot of what we're missing in society is the respect for the nature of things around us—larger animals, smaller animals, the reality of survival. If [we] can just understand where we fit in the world and have respect up and down and in how we treat things, 
that would be enough. – Lloyd Calvert, Livestock and Agriculture Manager at The High Lonesome Ranch