The goal of the 4th Rustici Rangeland Science Symposium is to engage ranchers, land managers, researchers, and policymakers in co-developing actionable science, policy, and management to sustain rangelands. The symposium will focus on partnerships surrounding a variety of topics, including: sustaining water resources; coping with drought; habitat conservation; and enhancing ranch profitability. Click here for more details and to register. 

Speaker Highlight –
Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management in Semiarid Ecosystems

Dana Bowman, Rancher and member of the Crow Valley Livestock Cooperative, Inc.

Justin Derner, Rangeland Scientist, USDA-Agricultural Research Service

Social and biophysical barriers exist for implementing management strategies to achieve desired outcomes of sustained livestock production, grassland bird populations, and vegetation structural heterogeneity in the shortgrass steppe of Eastern Colorado. Dana Bowman and Justin Derner will discuss the processes associated with the Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management (CARM) experiment, initiated in 2012, which is a novel effort where an 11 person Stakeholder Group comprised of ranchers, non-government conservation organizations and federal/state land management agencies make ranch-scale adaptive rangeland management decisions. Stakeholders and scientists co-produce defensible, science-based management recommendations for multiple rangeland objectives, and build trust and collaborative relationships. For more information on this research project, please see www.ars.usda.gov/rrsr/agm

Poster Session –
The poster session is a great opportunity to showcase your work to ranchers, researchers, land managers, agency representatives, conservationists, and policy makers.The broad focus for the combined mixer and poster session includes any activities related to sustainable rangeland research, management, conservation, and policy.

To submit your poster abstracts (250 words maximum) please contact Grace Woodmansee at [email protected].

Submissions are Due Friday, March 17, 2017.