"Reading the Range" |
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Range
monitoring workshops have been offered for several years by the University
of Arizona, yet range monitoring as a standard operating procedure on
Arizona ranches has been sporadically adopted. In 2000, a USDA grant,
Reading the Range was obtained and demonstration ranches for
range monitoring were established with technical assistance provided.
It was hoped that establishment of demonstration ranches for range monitoring
would encourage neighboring ranches to consider implementing similar practices
on their ranches. Four ranches in Gila County, encompassing approximately 100,000 acres, chose to participate in the original Reading the Range grant. To support data collection, an Excel based software program "Range Monitoring Data Management" (31 worksheets) was developed to process and summarize range monitoring data. |
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| In 2003, The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Rangeland Monitoring Program Evaluation Report was conducted in five counties by Maria Fernandez-Gimenez (available in January 2005 Rangeland Ecology and Management). A total of 46 ranchers and 40 agency employees participated in focus groups, while 311 ranchers and 129 agency employees responded to the survey. Of those surveyed having USFS allotments (n=142), 13% reported that their relationship with the USFS had greatly improved as a result of monitoring and 26% reported that their relationship with USFS had somewhat improved. For agency employees (n=100), they reported that as a result of permittee or landowner participation in monitoring, relationships with permittees had greatly improved in 37% of the cases and had somewhat improved in 46% of the cases. The evaltuation clearly documented the positive efforts of Extension's rangelenad monitoring program and strongly supported its continuation and expansion. Another major finding was that there was a strong association between rangelenad monitoring and implementation of beneficial land grazing management practices by permittees. The survey also reported that Extension enjoyed a high degree of credibility among both agencies and permittees, and Extension's objectivity and professionalism were great assets to the rangeland monitoring program. |
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| In 2005, the Reading the Range monitoring program provided technical assistance in collecting range monitoring data from approximately 70 key areas on 11 ranches encompassing 369,079 acres. Eight Extension Reports were completed in 2005 for monitoring conducted in 2004 for a total of 1825 pages. Three additional ranches in Gila County have requested to be enrolled in Reading the Range in 2006. With the addition of these ranches, the total acreage of ranches enrolled will exceed 500,000 acres, a five fold increase since the original program started in 2000. In order to help fund the range monitoring educational program, outside funding exceeding $110,000 has been obtained. | ||
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Please visit
the following sites for more information on |
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| Publications | Rangelandswest.org (outside link) |
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| Jim
Sprinkle |
http://cals.arizona.edu/gila/animalsciences/rangeresources.html |
