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RP Annual Meeting
Fargo, ND | May 19-22, 2019
Download the welcome video!
Sunday, May 19 (Welcome Reception), May 20-21 (Meetings @ NDSU), May 22 (Optional Free Tour)
Registration is $170 and will open soon.
The block of rooms at the Candlewood Suites hotel is open and ready for reservations now. Book early if you plan to arrive before May 19th, as the area hotels are filling fast due to local events that week. Book online using the "RLP" code or by calling the hotel at (701) 235-8200.
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Website Redesign Survey
Complete by April 1st
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The Executive Committee and the Arizona Technical Team have begun a process to redesign the Partnership’s suite of websites: Global Rangelands, Rangelands West, Member site and hosted state sites. Given changes in technology, website design, and the Partnership itself, it is important and timely to undergo a significant redesign that will build on the strengths of the Partnership while recognizing time and resource constraints, and that will provide a sustainable foundation for the future. Your input in this process will ensure the new websites reflect stakeholder needs, interests, and ease of use.
Complete the survey now! The 10 question survey will take about 15 minutes to complete. We appreciate your candor in your responses. We would appreciate receiving your responses by April 1, 2019. Survey results and website mock ups will be presented at the Annual Meeting in May to gain additional feedback.
We are also looking for volunteers for “usability" testing, which would be a one-time commitment after the new websites are ready for viewing. Please contact Sheila Merrigan if you are willing to be a usability tester.
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CIG Rangeland Thesaurus
By Amber Dalke
University of Arizona
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Members of the Rangelands Partnership recently received a Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) to develop a rangelands thesaurus that will improve the effectiveness of finding and delivering key grazingland technical information to conservation planners and other land managers. The three-year project led by the University of Idaho and University of Arizona, will use a standard vocabulary to tag information resources (e.g. manuals, handbooks, scientific literature) at the document or paragraph level for more efficient and relevant searching. This information will be available using a web‐based, mobile‐friendly application with online/offline capabilities that provides a search interface for discovering and delivering relevant rangeland resources.
Over the next few years, five working groups (thesaurus development, content selection, content indexing, website/app development, and distribution) will work together to complete the project. The RP is critical to this effort. We will need your assistance to develop the thesaurus, to find the right content, and to test the app. At our meeting in May, we will spend some time focusing on thesaurus development and content selection. There will be breakout sessions for these two topic areas so please be prepared to join one or both discussions.
Please review the grant and start to become familiar with the project. For more information or to join one or more of the five working groups, please contact Amber Dalke or Eric Winford.
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Digitizing Historical Range Data
Extends its Value
By Jeremy Kenyon
University of Idaho
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Digitizing historical material is always somewhat uncertain. Will the material be used? Who will it be used by? Certain types of range data, such as historical scientific reports and their associated maps, field survey data, repeat photographs and more, are easily given to these questions, but those data can be useful as resources for longitudinal analysis, particularly if they remain accessible over time.
In Idaho, Dr. Robert Piemeisel, a USDA Agricultural Research Service scientist in the early 20th century, studied various plant species, such as Russian thistle, Sandberg’s blue grass, flixweed, and others at a number of sites in Southern Idaho. Specifically, he studied at plots still unchanged near Burley, Twin Falls, and Castleford. Dr. Piemeisel built tall wooden towers and took panoramic photographs of the locations, documenting the landscape of the time - not terribly different from the landscape as it is today. However, those collections, ranging from the early 1930s through to the mid-1940s, have been stored and passed around range professionals in Idaho ever since.
The sites were sampled again in the 1950s, 1960s, and in the early 1990s, when Dr. Steve Bunting, a University of Idaho Professor of Rangeland Ecology, conducted a study on those same locations. His study showed the value of maintaining these records over time, although for many, they are just a bundle of old pictures and notebooks.
In 2016, the UI Library digitized a portion of this material. For most academic libraries, digitization is not overly complicated. The most difficult part is ensuring that the material is appropriately documented with metadata that describes the location and context of the material. Fortunately, the large collection of associated material makes relating the various reports, film, and images, relatively straightforward. However, use of the material is always uncertain. As one student recently said, looking at the material – “there’s really not much you can do with this.”
In 2017-2018, a UI graduate student, Holly Cunningham, showed otherwise, and used these collections for her M.S. thesis, entitled “Effects of Precipitation Variation on Secondary Plant Succession in the Sagebrush Steppe Ecosystem of Southern Idaho over 80 Years.” Her thesis utilized these legacy collections and reorganized the data in a format more useful for contemporary statistical analysis.
The Piemeisel collection is a wonderful example of the value of resurrecting, managing, and digitizing legacy range data collections, and we are eager to get the collection online.
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New Publication
By Jeanne Pfander & David Kruger
University of Arizona & University of Wyoming
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Hot off the press!! An article by two RP librarian members on the Society for Range Management has recently been published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Information (JAFI). Read the article.
Jeanne L. Pfander & David D. Kruger (2019) Society of the Quarter: The Society for Range Management (http://rangelands.org), Journal of Agricultural & Food Information, DOI: 10.1080/10496505.2019.1561143
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International Report | March 2019
By Barb Hutchinson
University of Arizona
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Ministerial Breakfast Meeting a Success! About 60 participants attended the Ministerial Breakfast meeting held at UN Environment Assembly 4 (UNEA4) in Nairobi on 12 March, 2019. Participants represented governments, UN agencies (UN Environment, FAO, UNCCD), independents, donors, NGOs, and research organizations. Key government officials from Mongolia, Sudan, Kenya, and Nigeria gave remarks at the session, with a discussion moderated by Shirley Tarawali, Deputy Director General, ILRI.
The meeting highlighted several key messages:
- The global significance of rangelands and pastoralists, and their contribution to sustainable development;
- The importance of an International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) for Mongolia and other countries where pastoralism is key;
- The significant gaps in data on rangelands and pastoralism that remain—and the importance of filling these;
- The need for governments and the UN to address the challenges facing rangelands and pastoralists and the importance of drawing attention to these.
Posters designed by the Rangelands Partnership. Summary and photos provided by Fiona Flintan, ILRI.
UNEA-4 Passes Resolution on Rangelands and Pastoralism! With particular thanks to the Governments of Mongolia and Kenya, of IRC, SRM, GRID-Arendal, ILRI, IUCN, CELEP, and all those who attended the Ministerial Breakfast at UNEA, Resolution L17 was passed by the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) at its 4th Session on 15 March, 2019. It was originally proposed by the Government of Kenya and supported by the Africa Group. It is a significant achievement to have a resolution specifically on rangelands and pastoralism and demonstrates that the world's governments and other stakeholders are becoming increasingly cognizant of the vital importance of addressing rangelands and pastoralism issues. Read the final text of the Resolution in all 5 UN languages.
The resolution shows that:
- There continues to be support for raising global awareness, and it recognizes the process for an IYRP that the Government of Mongolia has initiated through FAO's COAG
- UNEP has been requested to assist countries who wish to conduct regional assessments of rangelands and pastoralism
- Efforts should be redoubled to seek innovative solutions; the resolution acknowledges the value of traditional knowledge grazing and herding mechanisms and institutions, and calls for ecosystem restoration, resilience planning, financing of sustainable development, and more.
Excerpted from email message from Dr. Maryam Niamir-Fuller, Advisor on Sustainability.
Gap Analysis Report: "A case of benign neglect: Knowledge gaps about sustainability in pastoralism and rangelands”, UN Environment. The report addresses the UNEA-2 resolution on "Combating Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought and Promoting Sustainable Pastoralism and Rangelands”, and it identifies the need for a global integrated assessment of rangelands and pastoralists that will provide a knowledge baseline crucial for monitoring the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among pastoralists. Read the report including executive summaries and Storymap.
Report: The GEO-6 report was launched recently at UNEA4. Read the full report as well as the summary and individual chapters in multiple languages.
Publication: The latest edition of GSSA's Grassroots is available online. Previous editions are also available online.
International Women's Day: the Land Portal launched a data story written by women in a semiarid region of Brazil titled “Demystifying Data: Data that Empowers”. The data story goes behind the facts which they have encountered, detailing the personal power that data can give to women, everywhere! More specifically, the piece covers and details the project Leveraging the 2030 Agenda to Strengthen Women’s Land Rights, carried out and coordinated by Espaço Feminista (EF) a Brazilian CSO dedicated to the economic and political empowerment of women.
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