Tony Malmberg passed on April 5, 2025. He had miraculously survived a dissected aorta three years earlier and endured two years of cancer. In that time, never leaving a job undone, he completed his memoir “Green Grass in the Spring: A Cowboy’s Guide to Saving the World,” deepened the bench for Holistic Management trainers and practitioners, and created strategies that enable equity for aspiring land stewards.

From the time he first shimmied up the leg of a horse at age four in the Nebraska Sandhills, Tony knew he was a cowboy. But what that meant changed through the arc of his life. He ranched for 35 years on Twin Creek in Lander, Wyo., regenerating the landscape before moving to Eastern Oregon with his wife, partner, and fellow soil and community builder, Andrea. His daughter, Katherine Dawn, and her husband, Rhett Abernathy, along with three granddaughters, Antonia, Alexandra, and Isadora, continue ranching in Tony’s old stomping grounds: the sagebrush steppe of the Wind River Mountains and the Red Desert of Wyoming.

Tony was dedicated to helping ranchers worldwide create profitable businesses by finding ways to ranch while also enhancing biodiversity. He was enlivened by what other people saw as insurmountable challenges, and trusted deeply those making decisions at the soil surface. Tony always sought to address the root cause of problems in agriculture, in life, and in the world. He became someone who didn’t blame others, but rather used his agency and was accountable for his decisions on the land and in life.

For many, Tony was an enigma. He was a cowboy and dressed like one, but he also had the mind of a financial and political analyst, an ecologist, a philosopher, and a poet. He did not conform to expectations from the outside or to extreme, exclusive thinking. Tony loved his friends and family, and especially cherished his relationships with his daughter, KD, his mother, Sybil, who passed away at 99 a few days after him, and his wife of twenty-seven years, Andrea. His love for cattle, stock dogs, and horses, as well as grass, rivers, sunlight, and soil, is what got him up joyfully in the morning. He also loved the Cornhuskers college football team, golf, meeting new people, good food, and engaging in deep conversations.

We who knew Tony loved his warmth, easy laugh, and curiosity. He radiated interest in the world and always asked questions to encourage our curiosity. Tony never stopped thinking about the land. He could relate the land management tools of disturbance, grazing, and rest to absolutely any topic. He taught us that human creativity is our greatest asset and to embrace adversity, diversity, and complexity; he always left room for us to change and grow wiser.

While his loved ones reflect on the too-short life of this enchanting human, we think about what made him and influenced him. Life’s hardships and grace, his upbringing in the rural west, the study of Holistic Management, books like the Tao Te Ching and Leaves of Grass, and the people he met and knew along the way.

Tony was a brave cowboy and created brave spaces. He transformed his own life, communities, rivers, and The Ecosystem. He believed in making change and guided many of us to continue his life’s work. May we be blessed by his memory, and remember another one of his favorite questions: “how must I behave to achieve the life we want?”

In lieu of flowers, food, and other gifts, please consider giving to the Growing Season Scholarship Fund at UVEhub.com, established in honor of Tony Malmberg to help all people access Holistic Management education, training, and implementation support. It was his wish that this fund be established.