Despite the conceptual panacea of ecosystem service markets as a solution for key challenges to sustainable rangeland food production, why have such markets failed to emerge?
The Balancing Act of Producing Food and other Ecosystem Services on Rangelands
Grazing management practices such as herding, strategic placement of livestock nutritional supplements and drinking water stations, and strategic fencing have the potential to reduce negative impacts of livestock to riparian areas.
UCCE Plumas-Sierra and UC Rangelands hosted the 2nd Rustici Rangeland Tour on the Beckwourth Ranger District for more than 60 attendees on the Plumas National Forest. The event created a venue for local forest staff, agency leadership, grazing permittees, and other regional stakeholders to discuss contemporary research, management, and monitoring for sustainable public lands grazing. The Rustici Rangeland Tour was established as part of the Rustici Rangeland Science Symposium series to bring hands-on extension education opportunities to local resource managers and stakeholders in a field-based setting
Grazing lands occupy nearly half the Earth’s land area, provide livelihoods for millions, and mitigate climate change via massive stores of carbon. Maintaining and restoring soil health is essential to ensuring these benefits in our ever changing environment.
Thus, there is substantial global interest in managing livestock grazing to improve soil health. Grazing is promoted by some as a panacea for sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change. In other cases, grazing is depicted as an ultimate driver of soil degradation.
In the western U.S., millions of acres of perennial grasslands, shrublands, and forests are held in the public domain and managed by state and federal agencies for multiple land uses. Although riparian meadows account for a small percentage of this landscape, their ecological and conservation values are substantial. These ecosystems provide a suite of benefits—including clean water, flood attenuation, nutrient sequestration, wildlife habitat, and livestock grazing.
California’s annual rangelands include open grasslands and woodlands dominated by an understory of herbaceous annual plants in the state’s valleys and low elevation mountains and foothills. These largely privately owned lands span 10 million acres and produce nearly 70% of the state’s livestock forage base. Therefore, annual rangelands provide a critical economic foundation for California’s rangeland livestock production1—annual gross value of cattle and sheep production exceeds $3 billion.
