These are seperated into four main topic areas:
Importance of Rangelands, Process, Contents, Findings & Conclusions
Importance of Rangelands:
Why are rangelands important?
Rangelands affect everyone's quality of life in the United States. These lands account for about 770 million acres, or 30% of U.S. lands, including Great Plains grasslands, savannas in Texas and Florida, Great Basin shrublands and woodlands, Alaska tundra, alpine meadows, wetlands and Southwestern deserts. Federal lands comprise 34% of U.S. rangelands.
People derive multiple goods and services from rangeland ecosystems including wildlife and wildlife habitat; high quality water, clean air, and open spaces; carbon sequestration to mitigate global warming; habitat for threatened and endangered species; recreational uses; food and fiber production, including livestock grazing; and a unique setting for social and cultural activities. We depend on these goods and services and expect them to be sustained for the benefit of future generations.
What are criteria and indicators?
A criterion, as used by SRR, is a category of conditions or processes that is an explicit goal of rangeland sustainability or by which rangeland sustainability can be assessed. A criterion is too general in scope to monitor directly, but can be characterized by a set of indicators that can be monitored over time.
An indicator is a quantitative or qualitative variable that can be assessed in relation to a criterion. It describes attributes of the criterion in an objectively verifiable and unambiguous manner, and is capable of being estimated periodically in order to detect trends.
Why is it important to develop criteria and indicators to assess rangeland sustainability?
Criteria and indicators can help determine if rangelands are being sustained. By measuring a sound, standardized set of indicators, we can report on a variety of factors that affect the sustainability of rangelands. Indicators provide more than national baseline information. They provide a way of monitoring changes that matter to us. Without an effective, consistent way to accurately monitor social, ecological and economic aspects of rangeland sustainability, it is difficult to measure progress toward sustainability.
Why do we need national indicators, when many decisions are made locally?
First, despite the trend toward encouraging local decision making about natural resource issues, a great many decisions are made in Washington, DC. Congress appropriates funds, enacts authorizing statutes, and conducts oversight over federal agency activities. Federal agencies adopt broad policies and allocate funding. In order for Congress and the federal government to wisely and efficiently carry out their business, it is important to have a basic understanding of conditions about the lands and people of the United States. National indicators are needed to allow the government to assess the U.S. rangeland situation and predict future trends.
Second, decisions should not be made in a vacuum. So, decisions made at state and local levels can benefit from an understanding of whether national and regional trends of comparable indicators have similar trends, as local ones.
The SRR First Approximation Report does not state whether US rangelands are sustainable or not. Don't we need to know the status of our rangelands and sources of problems in order to focus our efforts?
We cannot adequately describe the sustainability of US rangelands without appropriate data. At present, we have no way of gauging the status of the ecological, social, and economic sustainability of our rangelands. The SRR Report presents criteria and indicators that, when assessed collectively, can show the status of our rangelands.
What specific decisions can be made based on the criteria and indicators and data in the SRR First Approximation Report?
The SRR report will lead to agency decisions to improve and coordinate data collection efforts nationally, in order to show trends in rangeland sustainability. The First Approximation Report will not give specific data for the indicators; it will identify and evaluate existing data sets and describe the types of data needed in the future. Policy makers then will hopefully be able to use these data to improve the quality of their decisions.
We already collect a lot of information on the environment. Isn't it enough? Can't we already accurately assess the condition of rangelands without knowing about the indicators in this SRR First Approximation Report?
First, the available environmental data on rangelands is patchy and often overlapping. In statistical terms, it is neither collectively exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. As a result, scientists cannot make conclusions about the ecological status and trends of U.S. rangelands. Secondly, our society has become aware that environmental indicators, alone, do not tell us about how rangelands are contributing to our country's well-being over the long run.
Process:
What is the Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable and who participates?
The SRR is a stakeholder process for identifying criteria and indicators of rangeland sustainability. It is not, itself, a decision making body, but rather provides an opportunity for groups and individuals representing diverse interests and backgrounds to share information and perspectives on defining and describing C&I of rangeland sustainability. Currently we have representatives from numerous governmental agencies, professors of range ecology, sociology, animal science and economics, and members or industry groups, environmental organizations, and professional societies. The inclusive nature of the process will lead to wider acceptance and adoption of SRR products by agencies, non-profits, and academia, and the general public.
The SRR has a growing list of over a hundred representatives from Federal, state, and local agencies, 16 universities, non-governmental groups & organizations. The SRR has 4-5 meetings per year. Participants are organized in criterion groups, each focused on developing indicators for one criterion, and working groups, focused on cross-cutting issues. They continue SRR work between meetings through communication within their Criterion groups or with the large group in a series of email surveys known as the Delphi process.
Do the federal land management agencies support the effort? Who is paying for it?
Federal land management agencies have demonstrated support for the SRR through financial and participatory contributions. To date, the Forest Service, ARS, Bureau of Land Management, Geological Survey, NRCS, and Colorado State University have funded SRR activities. Participants and their organizations have supported SRR with time and effort. SRR participants, who volunteer their time to attend SRR meetings and carry out the work of SRR between meetings, comprise the most important contribution.
Are there other sustainability roundtables?
Other roundtables include the Roundtable for Sustainable Forests, Sustainable Minerals and Energy Roundtable, and Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable. You can find out about them at the following websites:
Forest | Minerals and energy | Water
How were the criteria and indicators developed?
The C&I have been identified by SRR participants during and between meetings. We began formal meetings in March 2001 by identifying major issues of importance to rangelands. These issues were integrated with the seven criterion developed for temperate and boreal forests. This effort resulted in five criteria for rangeland sustainability. A group then formed around each criterion to identify appropriate indicators for each, using the relevant forest indicators as a starting point. Over the course of 11 meetings in two years, these criterion and indicators have been debated, discussed, and agreed upon by criterion groups, and the SRR as a whole. Each criterion chapter of the report has been reviewed by the other Criterion Groups as well as by 2-3 external (to SRR) reviewers.
How do the rangeland criteria and indicators mirror the forest criteria and indicators?
The RSF has 67 indicators and SRR has 64 indicators, although they are not the same. The SRR used the forest C&I as a starting point for developing the SRR C&I. They cover many of the same topics and therefore should be similar enough to facilitate coordination between these effort (see previous question). SRR has since identified 27 core indicators from the original 64 indicators.
Who is the audience for the SRR First Approximation Report /effort?
Material from this document is expected to complement a national report on the status of U.S. forests, due in 2003, as well as a first approximation report being prepared by the Sustainable Minerals Roundtable. A shorter briefing paper and supporting technical document will summarize the SRR report and be distributed to Congressional staffers, NGOs, and agencies. It will be posted on the SRR website and thus available to all interested in rangeland sustainability.
Who will issue future SRR Reports?
SRR will continue to publish accomplishments through appropriate outlets, which include the SRR website, agency publications and scientific journals. In addition, SRR will publish summaries of its work to be used in outreach efforts to Congress, agency leaders, major NGO's, and the American people.
Why should Congress and the Administration accept these findings?
Congress has directed the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to jointly charter an interagency group, coordinated with professional societies, NGOs, and industry groups, to address rangeland assessment and monitoring at both local and national scales. Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment Mark Rey has asserted that having all agencies within these departments conducting work in a similar manner across multiple rangeland jurisdictions will move our nation ahead in understanding the state of our Nation's rangeland resources. Application of SRR criteria and indicators should accelerate agreement on elements and methods of evaluation. The indicators are collaboratively formulated by researchers, industry representatives, environmentalists, and government land management agency staff.
Is the SRR coordinating its efforts with others developing indicators of sustainability?
We have collaborated with other groups working on criteria and indicators, including the Roundtable on Sustainable Forests, the Sustainable Minerals and Energy Roundtable, the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, The Nature Conservancy, EPA, and the President's Council on Sustainable Development. We hope to continue working with these groups in the future.
What follow-up is planned for the SRR First Approximation Report and effort?
At the release of the 2003 report, we held executive briefings with stakeholder groups and environmental NGO executive directors, agency heads, Congressional staff, and others to share our findings. After releasing its First Approximation Report, members of the SRR have a vision of working towards the widespread acceptance and use of criteria and indicators to assess trends in how sustainable U.S. rangelands are, and how they contribute to the sustainable development of the United States as a whole.
How do you plan to achieve broad acceptance of the SRR criteria and indicators?
We started working towards broad acceptance of the SRR by inviting many different stakeholders to participate in the process. The inclusive nature of the process should lead to wider acceptance and adoption of SRR products by agencies, non-profits, and academia. The SRR has worked hard to get external feedback through symposia like the Society for Range Management (SRM) annual meeting in 2002, and workshops (Ecological Society of America, 2002; Society and Natural Resources International meeting, 2002; and SRM annual meeting, 2003). In 2003, we presented a poster at annual meetings of the American Farm Bureau Federation and the American Farmland Trust. As previously mentioned, we will hold executive briefings in Washington DC to coincide with the release of the First Approximation Report. We also have plans to present our work to National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Association of Conservation Districts, and the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative this year as well. In addition, SRR conveners plan to share experiences and expand efforts by engaging rangeland management professionals from around the world in an information exchange session at the 7th International Rangeland Congress, July 2003, in Durban, South Africa.
This year we revised our mission statement to read, "The SRR will promote social, ecological, and economic sustainability of rangelands through the development and widespread use of the criteria and indicators for rangeland assessments, and by providing a forum for dialogue on rangeland sustainability". We have also re-written our operational plan to reflect a new emphasis on promoting the widespread use of the criteria and indicators.
Contents:
What is the general message of the SRR First Approximation Report?
The First Approximation Report describes each Criterion and its associated indicators. Information about data availability for each indicator will also be included. Future needs in terms of data, financial priorities, and policy collaboration will be identified too. The report will be a milestone in our ability to monitor and report upon the state of our Nation's rangelands.
What do the data availability categories mean?
We describe availability of data for each indicator, because absent or existing data may limit usefulness of indicators. Reporting on existing information is an important step in evaluating the utility of individual indicators.
The following categories were used for this purpose:
A) Methods and procedures for data collecting and reporting; and data sets of useable quality exist at the
regional-national level.
B) Standardized methods and procedures for data collecting and reporting exist at the regional-national level,
but useable data set(s) do not exist at the regional-national level.
C) Some data set(s) exist at the regional-national level, but methods and procedures are not standardized at the
regional-national level.
D) Conceptually feasible or initially promising, but no regional-national methods, procedures or data sets currently
exist.
Why did you include indicators that are not yet fully developed? Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on the indicators for which we have existing data? What good is an indicator if it can't tell us anything?
We chose, as a group, not to be limited by existing data when selecting indicators. The SRR mission is to "identify indicators of sustainability, based on social, economic, and ecological factors, to provide a framework for national assessments of rangelands and rangeland use." In order to fulfill this mission, the participants focused on the best indicators of sustainability in hopes that we can inform and influence agencies to direct monitoring efforts to areas identified by indicators as being important, provide for development of common data collection techniques, and focus research by agencies, universities, and organizations on developing methods to measure criteria and indicators.
Which indicator is the most important in knowing the sustainability of rangelands? Are all environmental indicators equal? Are some more important than others?
No one indicator is most important. Any one indicator cannot describe rangeland sustainability. The indicators have been formulated such that, taken as a whole, they provide an indication of rangeland sustainability. Different interest groups may use different indicators to evaluate the status and trends of U.S. rangelands. What is important is that all interest groups and stakeholders have a hand in developing the entire suite of indicators, thus attesting to their validity in a collective sense.
The SRR First Approximation Report identifies a number of data gaps. How will they be filled? Are they equally important to fill?
Data gaps generally exist because it is too difficult or expensive to collect such data. A few variables are so new that monitoring programs have not yet started measuring them. In some instances, we lack the technology to adequately sample attributes associated with an indicator. One result of SRR's work will be to increase agency awareness of the need to redirect monitoring programs to incorporate variables that will eliminate some of these data gaps. It will also assist agencies and others in prioritizing data collection efforts.
Why did you select 5 criteria and 64 indicators? Are these all the indicators needed to measure the sustainability of rangelands?
The 5 criteria were selected through a process begun by identifying and refining the most important issues on rangelands. For each criterion, a group was formed to identify a set of indicators would best describe rangeland sustainability within that category. The authors intended these indicators to be used together; populating the set of indicators with data will present clearer and more refined trends of rangeland sustainability.
Is this SRR First Approximation Report intended to replace existing monitoring and reporting programs?
No. The First Approximation Report is not a monitoring program. Rather, we hope that the C&I will result in coordination among management agencies to reassess and refocus, rather than replace, methods and content of monitoring and reporting programs.
There are a number of programs that monitor rangelands that are not included in this SRR First Approximation Report. Should these programs be scrapped?
Different rangeland monitoring programs are designed for different purposes. For example, some monitor only non-federal lands and others are only concerned with forests and woodlands. Numerous agencies and organizations collect data at the pasture, watershed, county, and state levels. It may be possible to aggregate some data from local to regional and national levels when certain statistical considerations are met. Regardless, monitoring programs should be primarily judged by how well they meet their primary objectives.
Are there any overall trends in the sustainability of U.S. rangelands that the SRR First Approximation Report comments on? Are we on the right track?
This report does not report any overall trends of sustainability. This report describes our ability to monitor and report on the sustainability of U.S. rangelands. Many changes must be incorporated in national assessments of national rangelands to be able to accurately report on sustainability trends. Indicators must be monitored over time to determine trends.
Findings and Conclusions:
What actions does the SRR First Approximation Report recommend?
In the First Approximation Report, SRR recommends a set of criteria and indicators to be used to assess rangeland sustainability. The report will also contain recommendations for future SRR activities and describe the benefits of supporting these activities. As SRR attempts to populate indicators with data, we will be able to recommend research protocols for measuring some indicators, as well as to recommend needed coordination and changes in monitoring methods for other indicators.
You say we don't have enough data, yet government agencies continue to regulate private sector activities. Shouldn't they stop until we have the right data?
Government agencies generally collect adequate, if imperfect, information about the lands they administer to make current decisions and actions. The purpose of the SRR effort is to improve coordination and dialogue among agencies, leading toward standardized national data sets that can describe overall trends for private and public land managers. Such information will further inform agencies, individually and collectively, to improve the quality of decisions and actions.
Will the indicators be used to regulate what I do on my grazing allotment?
No. The indicators are focused at a national level and while it can reveal regional trends that might inform regional policies, it will not give information on individual grazing allotments.
Who is to blame for the unsustainability of U.S. rangelands?
SRR is determining Criteria and Indicators for assessing rangeland sustainability. It is not determining the current status of
rangelands or the causes for their present condition, and, therefore, does not assess blame or credit for rangeland condition.
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