Proceedings brand creation for a prescribed fire culture – utilizing key social media parameters. Lars Coleman*1, J. Kelly Hoffman1, Thomas McDaniel1, R. Patrick Bixler2, Urs P. Kreuter1, Morgan Russell3

Collaborations should be more effective if groups share a common language to describe the topic of their joint efforts. This common language may be most critical when the collaborators have different priorities, and have been adversaries. We developed the on-line SPI Explorer Tool to build a common language about drought among the Tonto National Forest rangeland managers, ranchers with permits for livestock grazing in the Tonto, and the University of Arizona faculty and staff convening workshops about increasing preparation for drought. We focused on SPI, Standardized Precipitation Index because a minus 1 SPI (12-month window) triggers on-site evaluations of conditions for all livestock grazing allotments in Region 3 of the National Forest system.

UTILIZING THE AGRICULTURAL RANGELAND EROSION AND SALINITY DATABASE TO ENHANCE ECOLOGICAL SITE DESCRIPTIONS WITH HYDROLOGIC INFORMATION.

An Ecological Site Description (ESD) is a distinct land area described with specific soil and physical characteristics that are products of landform, topography, climate, and elevation which will support an association of plant species. Federal, state and private land managers use ESD’s to help identify ecological potential of a site for specific plant community state and transition responses. The current hydrological information in ESD’s is incomplete or lacking. Providing a hydrologic assessment to complement existing Ecological Site Description information of soils, vegetation, climate, and management options will provide land managers a new tool to understand soil-vegetation-erosion-management interactions and responses to conservation practices. A new database, the Agricultural Rangeland Erosion and Salinity Database (ARES), hosted by the USDA National Agricultural Library can be used to assist in developing inputs and validating outputs for models such as the Rangeland Hydrology Erosion Model (RHEM). The outputs from RHEM provides information to assess risks of unsustainable erosion and potential effects from management actions that result in changes in plant lifeform, foliar and ground cover. This information is necessary to create site-specific hydrological assessments to enhance ESD’s which will provide critical hydrologic information on runoff/erosion potential as a function of the plant community. The RHEM outputs provides potential runoff and soil erosion by ecological state and provides estimates from various conservation practices as part of the hydrologic assessment. Utilizing the hydrologic assessment will provide the user the ability to develop sustainable, long term land management monitoring plans. An example of a typical hydrologic assessment for the Shortgrass Prairie ecosystem based on data collected from the USDA-ARS Central Plains Experimental Range near Nunn, Colorado, is presented along with discussion of how it can be used to make informed management decisions with targeted objectives to increase land use sustainability of Shortgrass Prairie plant communities.

RANGELAND BRUSH ESTIMATION TOOLBOX (RABET): A METHOD FOR QUANTIFYING WOODY COVER ON WESTERN GRAZING LANDS. Chandra Holifield Collins*¹, Susan Skirvin², Mark Kautz¹, Loretta Metz³; ¹USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Tucson, AZ, ²University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, ³USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Temple, TX

The USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has allocated extensive resources for brush management (removal) as a conservation practice to control woody species encroachment on rangelands.  The NRCS Conservation Effects Assessment Project on Grazing Lands (CEAP-GL) has been tasked with determining how effective the practice has been, however, conservationists and land managers lack a cost-effective means to conduct these assessments at the necessary spatial and temporal scales.  An ArcGIS-based decision support tool was developed through a collaboration with NRCS CEAP-GL and the USDA-Agricultural Research Service.  The toolbox uses a remote sensing-based approach combining no-cost, high resolution National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) aerial photography and medium resolution Landsat satellite imagery to produce large-area temporal maps of woody canopy cover.  This operational product will allow land managers and NRCS to assess spatial and temporal changes in woody vegetation over large heterogeneous landscapes, and provide them with a tool to assess where the greatest need for treatment exists.

PERSISTENT ECOSYSTEM PROBLEMS AND THE NEED FOR RESILIENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS. Chad S. Boyd*; USDA-ARS, Burns, OR

The concept of resilience is often used as a modifier for describing the capacity of an ecological entity to recover from disturbance factors.  The notion of resilience, however, is not inexorably tied to ecology, but is instead, a system level concept that is independent of subject, and can be molded across space and time.  Following that logic, we can use resilience as a construct for measuring the capacity of natural resource management systems to be successful over time within dynamic social, ecological, and political contexts.  In sagebrush steppe ecosystems, the need for resilient natural resources management systems has increased dramatically in recent decades, and will likely continue to increase into the foreseeable future.  This is due to the fact that major management issues, such as exotic annual grass invasion and altered fire regimes, represent problems that are not just complex, but also persistent.  Purposefully building resilient management systems is a complex undertaking with many dimensions.  While such an endeavor is daunting, we suggest that a good starting point would be to explore existing efforts to design long-term natural resources management systems.  In this symposium, we will examine important social, ecological, and regulatory elements of one such effort in southeast Oregon, the Harney County Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances for Greater Sage-Grouse.  CCAAs are long-term, voluntary agreements between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and non-federal landowners to beneficially manage habitat threats facing candidate wildlife species in exchange for a reduced regulatory burden should the species be listed under provisions of the Endangered Species Act.  We will use this case study to illustrate critical elements necessary for resilient management systems.  Our aim is not to be prescriptive, but instead to suggest an experienced-based operational framework that can be generalized for use in a variety of sociological and ecological contexts.

USING MENTAL MODELS TO ARTICULATE AN ECOSYSTEM-BASED VISION FOR GREATER SAGE-GROUSE HABITAT MANAGEMENT. Dustin Johnson*¹, Chad Boyd²; ¹Oregon State University, Burns, OR, ²USDA - ARS, Burns, OR

The western portion of the sagebrush steppe is characterized by complex landownership patterns with mixes of federal, private, and to a lesser extent state-owned lands.  Conservation of greater sage-grouse habitat within this region requires engagement and agreement on a strategy from a diversity of stakeholders, given the large areas of intact habitat needed to support viable populations of this species. Habitat conservation must also play out in sagebrush landscapes that face complex and persistent ecosystem threats such as wildfire, invasive annual grasses, and conifer encroachment, which further highlight the importance of effective collaboration and resiliency of conservation effort among a diverse set of stakeholders.  Such ecosystem-based conservation efforts can be challenging because stakeholders are likely to have widely varying opinions and values associated with both the nature of habitat and the environmental and management factors which influence change.  Therefore, these efforts require a common and foundational understanding of habitat properties and ecological drivers of change that stakeholders can use to build a conservation vision of current conditions, desired conditions, and a strategy for achieving desired conditions.  As such, we have found the importance of simple mental models that possess these qualities increases for issues such as ecosystem-based wildlife conservation.   Mental models allow us to understand, communicate, structure, and simplify highly complex reality.  We found that when people have a common point of reference for understanding a problem it is much easier to productively discuss and ultimately agree upon options for dealing with the problem. 

BALANCING SPECIES-SPECIFIC REGULATORY IMPERATIVES WITH MANAGEMENT OF PERSISTENT ECOSYSTEM PROBLEMS. paul henson*; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland, OR

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is once again the subject of heated political debate.  Critics call it a failure because it has not led to the recovery of very many listed species.  Proponents claim the opposite, noting that the ESA has prevented the extinction of 99 percent of listed species.  My view, based on many years of implementing the ESA as a field biologist working throughout the West, is squarely in the middle: the ESA continues to enable some of the most important and positive conservation outcomes in the U.S., but implementation could be improved to accomplish more conservation with less unintended consequences.  There are significant areas where the ESA falls short of its potential and where its effectiveness could be improved.  For example, the ESA can create perverse disincentives to conservation for large segments of the American public.  It sometimes alienates or antagonizes important constituencies who would otherwise support its goals and intent and who are critical to conservation, such as many family farmers and ranchers.  The question is: can the ESA be strategically tailored to these circumstances, or is America’s most powerful environmental statute mostly a blunt regulatory instrument?  We used the inherent flexibility in the ESA during the greater sage grouse (GSG) listing process to reduce conservation disincentives within the ranching community of eastern Oregon and to support nonregulatory alternatives to an ESA listing of the GSG.  Our guiding principles included: (1) maximize positive net conservation outcomes for GSG, (2) keeping ranchers ranching is good for longterm, landscape-level conservation, and (3) help landowners view the GSG on their ranches as an asset rather than a liability.  This paper describes the rationale, process, and outcomes of this strategy, and how this approach may be applied to other conservation challenges where the ESA interfaces with private landowners. 

CHALLENGES OF CREATING WIN-WIN CONSERVATION FOR GREATER SAGE-GROUSE AND LANDOWNERS AT A LOCAL SCALE. Angela Sitz*; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bend, OR

ABSTRACT

In 2011 the Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) was approached by a diverse group of stakeholders to discuss the development of a Candidate Conservation Agreement (CCAA) with Assurances for greater sage-grouse in Harney County, Oregon.  Over the next 3 years the Service participated in a unique collaborative process and overcame many obstacles to develop a CCAA that was immediately replicated and adopted by the remaining six sage-grouse counties in Oregon.  During these negotiations there were often points of disagreement, these disagreements were overcome by finding common ground and compromising on the decision.  Some of these disagreements included the type and level of inventory and monitoring that would be required in the agreement, issues surrounding predation, and simply having a common understanding the primary threats to sage-grouse.  This collaborative effort not only led to the development of six similar agreements it also built relationships between a unique set of partners that has resulted in many other successful conservation and research efforts.

LANDOWNER TRUST, AND THE ROLE OF THE SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICTS IN ENABLING AND IMPLEMENTING GREATER SAGE-GROUSE HABITAT CONSERVATION
. Marty K. Suter-Goold*; Harney Soil & Water Conservation District, Burns, OR

ABSTRACT

Management of threatened or imperiled species on private land is a complex subject.  Successful management of these species requires establishing and maintaining trust with private landowners.  Trust is a combination of an emotional and logical act, and requires time and patience to create.  The Soil & Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs) in Oregon developed relationships and trust between private landowners and federal agencies to establish 30-year Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances (CCAA) for greater sage grouse (GSG) conservation.  In addition to decreasing the likelihood of a GSG listing, CCAA management plans were developed to address impediments to practical implementation and to ensure that western rangelands and generational ranches maintained ecological and economic viability. The process utilized in Oregon may have application to GSG across western rangelands.  In this presentation, I will guide the audience through the complexities of landowner engagement and trust, and the roles and responsibilities of the parties involved in enabling and implementing GSG agreements.

A PRIVATE LANDS PERSPECTIVE ON THE HARNEY COUNTY GREATER SAGE-GROUSE CCAA . Andrew Shields*; Roaring Springs Ranch, Frenchglen, OR

Roaring Springs Ranch is a cow-calf operation in southeast Oregon operating on over 1 million acres.  The ranch works toward maintaining healthy wildlife populations and range conditions while utilizing excess forage for beef production.  The ranch has a strong history of active management, implementing projects including landscape-scale juniper cutting and prescribed burning, riparian restoration, collaboration with the scientific community on many range and wildlife research projects, and participation in candidate conservation agreements with assurances (CCAA).  Enrolling in a CCAA gives private landowners opportunities to be proactive in conservation work and to receive benefits for good stewardship.  However, tradeoffs include privacy concerns and potential financial costs.  The ranch enrolled in the Harney County Sage-Grouse CCAA in 2015 despite potential tradeoffs.  Realized benefits, examples of conservation actions taken, and long term goals relating to this CCAA will be discussed.   The ranch’s enrollment in this CCAA has thus far been beneficial for the ranch and for the conservation of sage-grouse in this area. 

COLLABORATION: WHAT IS IT AND HOW DO YOU MAKE IT WORK? . Brenda S. Smith*; High Desert Partnership, Burns, OR

Addressing persistent and complex ecosystems problems to restore landscape resilience requires good science but must also consider the complexities of management and the people involved in decision-making. Collaboration is a word that is used generously and defined loosely in recent years but is recognized as a growing trend.  Agencies, including regulatory agencies, conservation groups, landowners and communities continue to seek out a participatory approach to solving complex issues. Collaboration comes with a host of expectations that include reducing delays in restoring ecosystem health, shoring-up rural economies and communities. The promise of collaboration has funders increasingly interested in funding partnerships that are high-performing and address landscape scale issues that cross management boundaries.  In our experiences, we believe engaging in a collaborative, solutions-oriented process with relevant stakeholders is the only viable and lasting means to address contemporary natural resource, social and economic issues facing communities.

It is difficult to put criteria around what makes partnerships high-performing but one key is effective collaboration.  Collaborative partnerships require substantial upfront social capital to build relationships.  Additionally, resources are needed to support the process such as building relationships, facilitation and communications. The High Desert Partnership is an organization that has pioneered successful collaborative initiatives in Harney County for over 10 years by advocating for a process where solutions are economically, socially, and ecologically sound and are developed by all stakeholders.  We have found there is no one recipe to make a collaboration work.  However, there are some guiding principles that have emerged across several very different collaborative efforts in our region. Principles include, neutral party guiding the process, groups must be empowered to make decisions and shared understanding of the problem. As collaboration continues to expand as a process to solve natural resource issues there is interest in understanding the shared qualities that ensure success.
 

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: CRITICAL ELEMENTS THAT BUILD RESILIENCY IN MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS. Jay Kerby*; The Nature Conservancy, Burns, OR

Successful development and implementation and persistence of the Oregon sage-grouse CCAA program depended on numerous sociological and ecological factors, many of which are translatable to other complex natural resource management challenges. The pending (at the time) decision on whether to grant threatened or endangered status to the Greater Sage-Grouse in 2015 stimulated a critical mass of diverse stakeholders, including local, state and federal officials and scientists, private landowners, and non-governmental organizations, to engage proactively in advance of the listing decision.  Commitment to participate, despite very high uncertainty about the eventual outcomes, did not wane throughout a >3-year development phase, as public employees were empowered to participate by their supervisors and private individuals donated thousands of hours of time and travel. This diverse coalition forced participants to wrestle with critical questions necessary to advance, such as how to integrate rigorous science necessary to grapple with complex ecological questions into a management framework that addresses sage-grouse habitat needs and facilitates communication and trust with wary landowners. Initial implementation of the Oregon CCAA management framework was empowered by several policy actions, adequate agency funding and staff support, and high landowner participation in enrollment. The framework is also being bolstered by adoption into related programs, such as the State of Oregon’s Habitat Quantification Calculator for planning and mitigation in Sage-Grouse habitat and use by BLM for project prioritization and planning in several districts. Additional programmatic needs for persistence include continuing education for new participants as principle authors retire or relocate and collaborative processes for potential unforeseen disputes. Successful adaptive management, as some initial on-the-ground actions fail to address complex ecological threats, such as invasive annual grasses, will be paramount and most effective if the diverse coalition that built this management framework continue to be fully engaged. 

CHALLENGES IN RESTORING AND REHABILITATING ARID LANDS. Jay Davison*; Univ. NV Cooperative Extension, Fallon, NV

Most of Nevada and large portions of the western United States can be classified as arid. Arid lands are defined in numerous ways but most agree that lands experiencing less than ten inches of annual precipitation are considered arid. In Nevada, vast areas receive less than six inches of precipitation annually. When arid lands experience other disturbances such as wildfire, vehicle traffic or mining natural revegetation is very slow to occur. Farming in these areas is only possible with irrigation and when irrigation water is withdrawn and used for other purposes natural revegetation has again proven to be extremely slow to non-existent. Because natural revegetation is so slow, to occur, efforts to supplement this process are ongoing throughout the West. However, impediments to successfully reestablishing vegetation in these areas is include; the lack of natural precipitation, altered/poor soil conditions, lack of adapted plant materials, wind erosion,  competition from exotic and/or native seed species, unrealistic expectations or desires of the interested public and low economic values associated with these sites.      

ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIVE AND INTRODUCED PERENNIAL GRASS SPECIES IN RANGELAND SEEDING. Kevin B. Jensen*¹, Craig Rigby², Blair L. Waldron², Tom Jones²; ¹Forage and Range Research Lab, Logan, UT, ²USDA-ARS, Logan, UT

ABSTRACT

Large-scale conversion of western US rangelands from a diverse, healthy, perennial plant-dominated ecosystem such as the lower-elevation Basin and Wyoming big sagebrush rangelands to invasive annual grasses, particularly cheatgrass and medusahead has increased wildfire frequency and size, loss of soil structure, increased soil erosion, and reduced watershed function, biological diversity and shortened fire return intervals. Experiments were conducted at four semiarid rangeland locations in Idaho (1), Wyoming (1), and Utah (2) addressing seedling establishment and plant persistence of 14 perennial cool-season grass species in cheatgrass dominated environments. Establishment of the improved native grasses, bottlebrush squirreltail, bluebunch, slender, and Snake River wheatgrasses, across locations were similar in plants m-2 to crested and Siberian wheatgrasses.   Only western wheatgrass had significantly fewer plants m-2 than crested and Siberian wheatgrass.  Seedling density of native grass cultivars similar to Hycrest II crested and Vavilov II Siberian wheatgrasses were bottlebrush squirreltail (cv. Toe Jam Creek and Fish creek),  bluebunch wheatgrass (cv. P_7 and Goldar), slender wheatgrass (cv. FirstStrike, Revenue, and San Luis), Snake River wheatgrass (cv. Secar and Discovery), basin wildrye (cv. Trailhead II, Trailhead, and Continental), Thickspike wheatgrass (cv. Bannock, Sodar, Schwendimar, and Bannock II), and Indian ricegrass (cv. White River and Rimrock).  Native grasses similar to crested wheatgrass in plant density after 5 years were western wheatgrass, Snake River wheatgrass, and thickspike wheatgrass.  Rhizomatous species western wheatgrass and thickespike wheatgrass increased in plant density over time.  From this data, there appears to adequate plant denisty in native grasses to establish and compete with cheatgrass.

FORAGE KOCHIA: NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR REHABILITATION OF GREAT BASIN RANGELANDS. Blair L. Waldron*; USDA-ARS, Logan, UT