Origin,Persistence, and Resolution of the Rotational Grazing Debate: Integrating Human Dimensions Into Rangeland Research |
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| Authors: | DD Briske Nathan F Sayre L Huntsinger M Fernandez-Gimenez B Budd JD Derner |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Ecosystem Science & Management, Texas A&M University, 2138 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-2138, USA;2. Department of Geography, 507 McCone Hall, No. 4740, Berkeley, CA 94720-4740, USA;3. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management, University of California, 130 Mulford Hall, No. 3110, Berkeley, CA 94720-3110, USA;4. Department of Forest, Range and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1472, USA;5. Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust, 500 East Fremont, Riverton, WY 82501, USA;6. US Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service, Rangeland Resources Research Unit, 8408 Hildreth Road, Cheyenne, WY 82009, USA;1. Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA;2. Assistant Professor, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA;3. Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA;4. Doctoral Student, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA;5. Supervisory Research Rangeland Management Specialist and Research Leader, USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources Research Unit, Cheyenne, WY 82009, USA;6. Post-Doctoral Scholar, USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources Research Unit, Cheyenne, WY 82009, USA;7. Rangeland Watershed Specialist, Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA.;1. Department of Economics, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA;2. Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Vernon, TX 76384, USA;1. Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta;2. Professor & Mattheis Chair, Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta;3. Associate Professor, University of Alberta, Biological Sciences, Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science, Edmonton, Alberta;4. Retired Research Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Lethbridge, Alberta;1. Quantitative Ecologist, Human Dimensions Research Program, USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA;;2. Professor, Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA;;3. Rangeland Management Specialist, USDA-NRCS Jornada Experimental Range, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA;;4. Research Ecologist, USDA-ARS Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, TX 76502, USA;;5. Distinguished Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA;;6. Professor, Animal and Range Sciences Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA.;1. Authors are from School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA;2. Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. |
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| Abstract: | The debate regarding the benefits of rotational grazing has eluded resolution within the US rangeland profession for more than 60 yr. This forum examines the origin of the debate and the major reasons for its persistence in an attempt to identify common ground for resolution, and to search for meaningful lessons from this central chapter in the history of the US rangeland profession. Rotational grazing was a component of the institutional and scientific response to severe rangeland degradation at the turn of the 20th century, and it has since become the professional norm for grazing management. Managers have found that rotational grazing systems can work for diverse management purposes, but scientific experiments have demonstrated that they do not necessarily work for specific ecological purposes. These interpretations appear contradictory, but we contend that they can be reconciled by evaluation within the context of complex adaptive systems in which human variables such as goal setting, experiential knowledge, and decision making are given equal importance to biophysical variables. The scientific evidence refuting the ecological benefits of rotational grazing is robust, but also narrowly focused, because it derives from experiments that intentionally excluded these human variables. Consequently, the profession has attempted to answer a broad, complex question—whether or not managers should adopt rotational grazing—with necessarily narrow experimental research focused exclusively on ecological processes. The rotational grazing debate persists because the rangeland profession has not yet developed a management and research framework capable of incorporating both the social and biophysical components of complex adaptive systems. We recommend moving beyond the debate over whether or not rotational grazing works by focusing on adaptive management and the integration of experiential and experimental, as well as social and biophysical, knowledge to provide a more comprehensive framework for the management of rangeland systems. |
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