Rangelands, Volume 43, Number 6 (2021)
ABOUT THE COLLECTIONS
Welcome to the Rangelands archives. The archives provide public access, in a "rolling window" agreement with the Society for Range Management, to Rangelands (1979-present) from v.1 up to two years from the present year.
The most recent issues of Rangelands are available with membership in the Society for Range Management (SRM). Membership in SRM is a means to access current information and dialogue on rangeland management.
Your institution may also have access to current issues through library or institutional subscriptions.
ISSN: 0190-0528
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Recent Submissions
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Oil and gas reclamation on US public lands: How it works and improving the process with land potential conceptsThere are three general stages of a well's life on US public land: 1) the permitting process to drill, 2) active extraction of fossil fuel resource, and 3) plugging and abandonment of well. There is no national standard for oil and gas reclamation in the United States similar to mining and therefore current reclamation practices and standards fail to achieve long-term effectiveness across the western United States. A reclaimed well pad's land potential is determined by 3 properties: static (e.g., climate), dynamic (e.g., soil stability), and process (e.g., water retention). Understanding a reclaimed well pad's land potential enables federal land agencies to outline surface reclamation goals and requirements consistently and clearly. Monitoring for land potential increases the capacity of the private industry to practice adaptive management by enabling companies to respond to plant community changes while maintaining long-term progress toward recovery.
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Measuring economic sustainability at the ranch levelThe three most well-recognized sustainability pillars are environmental, social, and economic. Ranch economic sustainability hinges on asset value dynamics and ranch profitability. Ranch economic sustainability metrics include multiyear average positive accrual adjusted net income, rate of return on assets (valued at market value) >1.5%, equity to assets ratio (valued at market value) >50%, and current ratio >2%.
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On-ranch adaptation to California's historic 2012-2016 droughtCalifornia's historic, statewide drought (2012-2016) challenged the ability of ranchers to adapt to unprecedented conditions while maintaining the economic and ecological sustainability of their operations. We examined how California's historic drought shaped on-ranch drought impacts and management strategies via two separate research efforts: The California Rangeland Decision-Making Survey (2011) and semistructured interviews conducted during the drought (2016). The average number of drought management practices used by ranchers increased between 2011 and 2016; in particular, an apparent increase in use of proactive practices may indicate that underlying drought conditions leading into 2012 were a catalyst for proactive drought planning. Rancher responses to questions about future drought risk suggest drought experience impacted individual perceptions of threat and preparedness in two distinct ways. Ranch managers believed that 1) drought will be more influential in their future management planning, and 2) their current management strategies would be adequate to mitigate future drought impacts. Decision-support tools to help ranchers match their preferred proactive strategies with cost-effective, operation-specific reactive strategies can increase the use of science-based decision-making during drought.
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The inaugural Range Practicum: A hands-on land and livestock trainingThe inaugural Range Practicum incorporated practical, hands-on training and demonstrations into the SRM Annual Meeting and Training, contributing to its "new look" in 2020. The Range Practicum translated stockmanship, packing, horse training, and prescribed fire, as well as agency rangeland monitoring and soils training, into practical skills. It also included rangeland monitoring, soils training, equipment demonstrations, and a small tradeshow. The Range Practicum incorporated the 2020 Producer Forum as the transformative Women in Ranching Forum and included a Producer Reception. Over 200 rangeland professionals, including students, ranchers, agency managers and specialists, and applied scientists, attended the Range Practicum. Most Range Practicum participants registered for the entire annual meeting. Most participants were very satisfied or satisfied with the training sessions. The most popular sessions of the Range Practicum were the hands-on livestock workshops, specifically the horse and mule packing and low-stress livestock handling, followed by a wild horse demonstration and a hands-on prescribed fire workshop. We recommend the Range Practicum be an ongoing event at future SRM annual meetings and trainings. We recommend it include experiential sessions that cannot be included in the traditional format of the annual meeting (e.g., hands-on, with live animals, fire, etc.).