25 June 1984 Professor Donald A. Jameson spends sabbatical leave at the Centre for Resource Management

Instead of trying to dominate nature, range management woos nature by rather more gentle manipulation to achieve required results, according to Professor Donald A. Jameson, Professor of Range Science at Colorado State University in the United States.

Professor Jameson is presently spending several months of sabbatical leave at the Centre for Resource Management at Lincoln College.

"Basically, range science is a collection of knowledge required for management of land primarily used for animal production," he said.

"The distinction between range science and pasture management is that the pasture manager usually controls the kinds of plants grown.

"In pasture management productivity is fairly high and is able to pay back for intensive management.

"You get reasonable returns.

"In range management you do not expect to be rewarded sufficiently for intensive management, so you operate on a less intensive scale.

"You don’t produce as many animals, but, on the other hand, you don’t invest as much in management."

Professor Jameson said range science was more an ecological science.

"Since you are not going to invest much in controlling things, you count more on your knowledge of the ecology to manipulate in a more gentle way," he said.

Professor Jameson, who arrived here late May, and will stay until Boxing Day, is working on a project for the Department of Lands and Survey, with which the Centre for Resource Management is involved.

"I am looking at some. possibilities of land management planning, particularly integrating various activities on the land, he said.

"The Lands Department has primarily been a pastoral department, put is now looking at simultaneous production of trees, recreational uses and so on.

“ We have had a lot of experience of that in the United States in the last 12 to 15 years, and I can relay some of the mistakes we have made.

Professor Jameson brought some of his computer programs with him and his first few weeks here has been spent translating those into local systems.

Now he is ready to range further afield, and he has already had talks in Wellington with Land and Survey, and he is scheduled to have talks with the department in Invercargill in the next week or so.

He describes the purpose of his visit to New Zealand as a little bit of advising, and a little bit of learning.

So far most of his time has been spent, apart from working with the computer, on advising.

"Since some of my support is coming from New Zealand, naturally I have to pay that off with an appropriate amount of advising," he said.

"On the other hand, I am also supported from Colorado State University, which is more concerned about - my learning but we'll get to that."

Fifty-four-year-old Professor Jameson got his basic bachelor of science degree in forest-range management in 1950 from Colorado State University.

He followed this two years later with a master of science degree in range management and animal industry from Montana State University in 1952.

His doctorate, on range management, plant physiology and soils, was awarded by Texas A. and M. University in 1958.

He has been Professor of Range Science at Colorado State University since 1971.

Further information from Dr Donald A. Jameson, Centre for Resource Management,

Lincoln College, Canterbury, New Zealand.