Rangeland Ecosystem Services

Rangelands of the U.S. provide diverse ecosystem services – benefits that society receives from nature – that are categorized as provisioning, supporting, regulating, and cultural. Two change drivers are anticipated to have the greatest impact on the future supply of these services: 1) the biophysical consequences of continued climate change and variability, and 2) a shift in societal priorities from provisioning toward cultural ecosystem services. The collective impact of these two change drivers on the supply of rangeland ecosystem services could produce four plausible outcomes: 1) Grass-finished Beef, 2) Modern Pastoralism, 3) Diversified Ecosystem Services, and 4) Amenity Ranching. Two of these scenarios may maintain rural communities by sustaining the prevailing ecosystem service of beef cattle production, and two may transform rural communities through the expansion of renewable energy technologies and the investment of external capital from amenity land sales.

The potential consequences of these scenarios, either independently or in combination, will affect food and energy security, environmental quality, cultural identity and livelihoods. Technological solutions alone may be insufficient to chart a sustainable path forward, and will require substantial shifts in societal priorities and values. Consequently, transformational change of social-ecological systems, as opposed to small and incremental change within systems, may be required to sustainably accommodate large changes in the availability of ecosystem services. The on-going mega-drought in the western U.S. and extreme weather events in California portend the plausibility of these potential outcomes.

Global Rangeland Stewardship

Rangelands are critical to planetary sustainability, but they are most often associated with natural resource degradation and human poverty. The distinction between these two perspectives of rangelands is a function of the lens through which they are viewed. The perspective embracing degradation and poverty is representative of a localized lens narrowly focused on provisioning ecosystem services, primarily forage and livestock production. In contrast, a planetary lens embraces the total value of ecosystem services contributing to Earth stewardship. The aggregate value of regulating, supporting, and cultural services provided by global rangelands may be of equal or greater value than those of the select provisioning services currently emphasized.  Accelerating global drivers place greater demands on select provisioning services, while only marginally increasing benefits to rangeland residents. Simultaneously, greater demands for provisioning services decreases the ecological capacity of rangelands to provide a diverse portfolio of ecosystem services to global citizens.

A transformative stewardship strategy is needed to more equitable prioritize value among the four categories of ecosystem services supplied by rangelands. This strategy is predicated on global investment commensurate with the entire portfolio of rangeland ecosystem services to reduce the demand for provisioning services by rangeland residents. Investments will need to be sufficient to maintain pastoralism, limit rangeland conversion to alternative uses, and increase biodiversity conservation. Institutional leadership, policies, and financial resource availability¾ coordinated among multiple intergovernmental organizations¾may represent an essential prerequisite to successfully implement this transformational stewardship strategy. The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists may provide the momentum to initiate this needed transformation.

Translational Science

Translation science originated within the medical profession as a systematic means to convert scientific knowledge into practical applications that enhance human health and well-being. It’s a means of producing ‘actionable science’ by demonstrating the utility, value, and means by which scientific knowledge can effectively address human challenges. When applied to natural resource management, translational science encounters a major step that does not occur in medicine – the conversion of an ecological perspective to a human perspective. This additional complexity has increased the difficulty of effectively integrating ecological science into natural resource management and conservation. For example, the intensive rotational grazing debate, shrub removal – water yield controversy, and the wild horse and burro dilemma on public lands in the western U.S. are symptomatic of the inability to effectively integrate knowledge of ecosystem function with the dynamics of socio-economic systems.

Ecological science is founded on scientific inquiry, which is assumed to produce precise, mechanistic and repeatable facts that are independent of the observer. In contrast, natural resource managers and policy makers are required to integrate economic, political, and cultural concerns into their decision making process to satisfy diverse stakeholder groups. This form of knowledge creation requires greater interpretation, pragmatism and flexibility than that of empirically-based ecological knowledge. Further, knowledge theory envisions knowledge creation as a social process where knowledge and action occur simultaneously, rather than sequentially as previously assumed. Consequently, externally developed scientific knowledge is seldom effective when it is applied to context specific problems. Greater awareness of how knowledge is created and the skills required to co-produce knowledge in a social context are desperately needed. Translational science partnerships will require greater communication, trust and joint problem ownership among managers, scientists, and policy makers to create actionable science necessary to develop sustainable social-ecological systems.