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From recent discussions with rangeland administrators in the arid parts of the United States of America it is apparent that current Australian thinking on the philosophy of range assessment is very close to that in the United States. Formal range assessment and management in Australia is a very young science compared to that in the United States. Although we lack the 50 or so years' experience of organized range management teaching and research the true gap is much less. In the field of range inventory, it appeared that Australian expertise and progress was at least equal to that in the United States. As range inventory is a basic prerequisite to range assessment and application of management manipulations on rangelands, Australia already has a firm basis for future work in this field. Some concepts on range assessment are outlined and an approach to range assessment is suggested. It is to be hoped that one general approach to range assessment can be adopted in Australia and that we can avoid the problems which occur in the United States when different Government agencies use different assessment methods.