Bridging Lands and Building Trust in Northeastern Nevada: The Shoesole Resource Management Group

Mar 12, 2026

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A few years before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife (PFW) Program was established in Nevada, the Shoesole Resource Management Group (Shoesole) was formed out of conflicts over public lands livestock grazing in the northeastern portion of the state. The group is comprised of three cattle ranches and cooperating federal, state, local, and nongovernmental partners.

Shoesole was created by the joining of the Cottonwood Ranch and Boies Ranches collaborative holistic management teams into one team in 2002. In the mid-1990s both ranches had adopted a more holistic approach to ranch management — focused on maintaining a viable livestock business while improving and sustaining rangeland and riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian health on the land. The Home Ranch joined in 2010.

Members of Shoesole have collaborated on management of the ranches’ private and public lands grazing allotments. Their philosophy is the following:

“We are a collaborative, consensus-based group, working on natural resource management and devoted to sustaining healthy and productive public and private landscapes.”

Last spring, Susan Abele, Nevada State Coordinator for the PFW Program, participated in the Shoesole annual spring meeting, which was a rewarding two days of presentations and touring sites on each of the ranches. Discussions included the outcomes of past efforts and the planning of future ones. The PFW Program has active projects with each of these operations and is excited to be part of a larger, landscape-scale effort to maintain core habitat for sagebrush sagebrush
The western United States’ sagebrush country encompasses over 175 million acres of public and private lands. The sagebrush landscape provides many benefits to our rural economies and communities, and it serves as crucial habitat for a diversity of wildlife, including the iconic greater sage-grouse and over 350 other species.

Learn more about sagebrush ecosystem-dependent species and improve on-the-ground conditions within a priority migration corridor for big game.

The biologist is sitting at a computer looking at the screen while three partners circle around her. One partner is looking at the computer screen and two others are hovered over a large paper map which is on the table next to the biologist. — Susan Abele, Nevada State Coordinator for the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, working with partners to document past restoration projects on a paper map for the Shoesole group meeting. Fun fact: these landowners loved seeing their projects on a map in our online habitat database!

People outside circled around a speaker listening to him talk. — A stop along the tour to discuss water and grazing management.

A sign that reads, "Shoesole Collaborative Management Team Established 2002. Smith, Boies, and Uhart ranches. And below that the partners are listed as BLM, NDOW, NRCS, UNR Ext., USFS, USFWS. Below that there is an image showing a circle with the words, "Peace, Community, Listening, and Care" around it. At the bottom it says, "Circle of Sustainability". Inside the circle there is a geographic map showing the location of the partnership. U.S. Route 93 borders the right. — As part of the tour, partners unveiled a new sign commemorating their long-standing collaboration.

To learn more about the Shoesole Resource Management Group, you can visit their website or read a commentary that includes more background and details.