Rangeland monitoring is an important component of the sustainable management of rangelands. Federal land management agencies and other range managers, often struggle to accomplish all necessary monitoring due to staffing, funding, and time constraints. Permittees are frequently asked to help monitor their grazing allotments in cooperation with local rangeland management specialists and other parties such as, university extension and state departments of agriculture. These joint monitoring efforts are frequently referred to as Cooperative Permittee Monitoring (CPM). In an effort to support CPM the Wyoming Legislature and Governor allocated funds for a Rangeland Health Assessment Program (RHAP) in 2010. Since then over $700,000 in RHAP grant dollars have been provided by the State of Wyoming through the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. Over 4 million acres of federal, state, and private rangelands have been or are currently under rangeland monitoring, funded in part, through RHAP dollars on 37 different projects. Participants in the program, both professional range managers and permittees report positive experiences. The RHAP program is currently working toward ensuring monitoring programs are sustainable in the long term after RHAP funds are expended. The presenter of this poster has worked with 4 RHAP grants in four Wyoming counties (Big Horn, Hot Springs, Washakie, and Fremont). Lands included in these grants include USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, private, and state lands. This poster will share examples of how the RHAP program has positively influenced rangeland management and CPM. Previous RHAP experience also suggests potential areas of improvement and factors that contribute to a successful project.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.