The Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable (SRR):

  • Focuses on science, research, education, and extension related to social, ecological, and economic complexities of Rangeland Sustainability.
  • Promotes understanding among diverse interest groups, and private and public organizations and agencies.
  • Includes representatives from non-governmental organizations, public and private land management professionals, rangeland scientists, and university researchers.
  • Meets frequently to develop applications, models, publications, and products that advance the state of knowledge about Rangeland Sustainability, including soil health, plant communities, animal populations, water quality and quantity, productive capacities, social and economic characteristics, legal and institutional frameworks, and interactions among these elements.
  • Welcomes new participants and stakeholders interested in all aspects of Sustainable Rangelands.

What We Do

Mission Statement: The SRR promotes social, ecological, and economic sustainability of rangelands through conducting research, developing resources to communicate findings, and providing a forum for networking and collaboration.

In April 1999, the USDA Forest Service hosted the Rangelands Criteria and Indicators (C & I) for Sustainability Workshop to discuss sustainability of rangelands and decide whether the C&I would be an appropriate means of measuring progress towards this goal.
 

Goals

Goal 1: Focus SRR projects around:

  1. integrating systems perspectives of rangeland’s social, economic & ecological benefits
  2. refining & informing the Criteria &Indicators of Sustainable Rangeland Management for scalability
  3. defining and capturing project impact/application, &
  4. blending science and management perspectives

Goal 2: Increase partnership and membership SRR in number and diversity

Goal 3: Communicate findings, develop resources/tools and effectively educate to appropriate audiences

Goal 4: Build SRR into an increasingly permanent, sustainable organization
 

SRR Guiding Principles

  1. Collectively, indicators should guide monitoring efforts to measure rangeland sustainability in the U.S. at the national scale. Where possible, indicators should guide monitoring efforts to measure rangeland sustainability at multiple scales.
  2. Ensure that the indicators employ the appropriate temporal and spatial scales for assessing the criteria.
  3. Collectively, criteria and indicators will address social, ecological, and economic aspects of sustainability.
  4. Use a criteria and indicator framework as a common language and operational framework for defining and assessing sustainability. Begin by considering the criteria and indicator framework of the RSF.

Review and consider, as appropriate, other indicator initiatives.

  • There are numerous policy questions related to rangelands. We will focus on the vision-mission agreed to by the SRR.
  • The Roundtable process will feature outreach to stakeholders, open dialogue, and respect for differing opinions.
  • The SRR will be supportive of and compatible with improved on-the-ground management of rangelands.