Natural Resource Conservation Service Perspective on Rangeland Ecosystem Services

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Natural Resource Conservation Service Perspective
on Rangeland Ecosystem Services

• Leonard Jolley and Dennis Thompson
• USDA NRCS
• Beltsville, MD and Washington, DC

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Objective of Presentation

• To describe the relationship of USDA NRCS
  planning activities and program delivery to
  ecosystem services on privately owned rangeland.

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• NRCS planning and program delivery currently
  addresses a wide range of these ecosystem
  services, and this range is increasing.

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• Current planning environment 9 steps of
  planning
• NRCS planning environment incorporates ecosystem
  services at several levels
• Our concern for the environment was shaped early
  during the Dust Bowl, and has evolved since then.

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National Planning Procedures

• NRCS provides conservation planning and technical
  assistance to clients (individuals, groups, and
  units of government). These clients develop and
  implement plans to protect, conserve, and enhance
  natural resources (soil, water, air, plants, and
  animals) within their social and economic
  interests.

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• Planning involves more than considering
  individual resources. It focuses on the natural
  systems and ecological processes that sustain the
  resources. The planner strives to balance natural
  resource issues with economic and social needs
  through the development of resource management
  systems (RMS).

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• Planning is complex and dynamic. Successful
  planning requires not only a high level of
  knowledge, skills, and abilities on the part of
  the planner, but also the exercise of
  professional judgment.

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National Planning Procedures

• Help protect, conserve, and enhance natural
  resources
• Design alternatives that meet local resource
  quality criteria for identified resource issues
• Include the consideration of human concerns
  toward achieving sustainable agriculture
• Consider the effects of planned actions on
  interrelated geographical areas (i.e., looking
  off-site, beyond the planning unit boundary)

• Consider and explain the interaction between
  biological communities and society
• Focus on ecological principles
• Consider the effects and interactions of planned
  systems and practices on the natural resources,
  as well as economic and social considerations

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• NRCS planners also need to become familiar with
  NRCS planning policy, program manuals, discipline
  manuals (agronomy, biology, economics,
  engineering, range, etc.), the Field Office
  Technical Guide (FOTG), and approved automated
  planning tools. In addition, users need to be
  thoroughly familiar with NRCS policy for
  complying with the National Environmental Policy
  Act (NEPA), the Land Use Manual and Farmland
  Protection Policy Act, and related environmental
  concerns.

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• The expected physical effects of conservation
  systems and practices are assessed in the context
  of ecological, economic, and social
  considerations as documented locally in the FOTG.
  
• The expected impacts of those effects on natural
  resource quality, economic needs, and social
  objectives are then used to help develop and
  evaluate management alternatives.

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• The NRCS conservation planning process emphasizes
  development of resource management systems (RMS).
  An RMS is a combination of conservation practices
  and resource management activities for the
  treatment of all identified resource concerns for
  soil, water, air, plants, animals, and humans
  that meets or exceeds the quality criteria in the
  FOTG for resource sustainability.

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• NRCS will provide ecosystem-based assistance to
  all of our customers to help them improve
  ecosystem health, restore damaged ecosystems, and
  sustain natural resources. All assistance will be
  based on ecological principles and will stress
  integrated management of soil, water, air,
  plants, and animals, including human
  considerations. Ecosystem-based assistance
  applies to all planning units, regardless of
  scale.

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• All assistance, even that initiated by
  single-purpose objectives, will follow the
  ecosystem-based assistance concept by considering
  related concerns in the planning unit. NRCS will
  assess the interrelated effects of all its
  assistance on the resources within the planning
  unit and its interconnected systems.

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• Rangeland planning tool GSAT

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GSAT Utilized to Develop Conservation Plan
Alternatives to Address Resource Concerns Meet
Prescribed Grazing Management
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GROWTH CURVES
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• Customer Service Toolkit
• GIS based delivery and planning tool
• allows spatially explicit matching of
• conservation practices, soils,
• topography, ecological sites,
• and other natural resource concerns.

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CPPE

• CPPE captures, documents and annotates empirical
  and science-based conservation effects
• Planners must display and evaluate the effects of
  various conservation options available to the
  client.
• The conservation effects process helps planners
  assist clients with their conservation decisions
  by
• Providing a framework in which to organize and
  present information that facilitates comparison
  of the positive (gains) and negative (losses)
  impacts of a conservation option.
• Permitting consideration of all ecological,
  economic, and social values pertinent to the
  evaluation.

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• CPPE is the comprehensive foundation for
  developing an RMS for a Conservation Management
  Unit
• provides the initial documentation of
  conservation effects required by environmental
  compliance laws, e.g., NEPA
• CPPE with appropriate linkages to quantitative
  models can be used to assist with reporting
  (e.g., PRS) and outcomes from conservation
  practices more effectively than Conservation
  System Guides (CSG)

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NEPA

• Projecting effects

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Market-based approach

• NRCS Strategic Plan points to voluntary,
  incentive-based approach as the most effective
  method of achieving sound resource management and
  conservation on private lands.

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• Lack of reliable information about the benefits
  produced by specific conservation actions hinders
  development of environmental markets.
• NRCS is interested in markets for environmental
  credits, and hopes to encourage more public
  investment in conservation.

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• A Project to capture and synthesize what is know
  about the effects of conservation practices on
  private lands is embodied in CEAP Conservation
  Effects Assessment Project

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• The Conservation Effects Assessment Project
  (CEAP) began in 2003 as a multi-agency effort to
  quantify the environmental benefits of
  conservation practices used by private landowners
  participating in selected U.S. Department of
  Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs

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Reynolds Creek?
Walnut Creek?