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The Nature Conservancy in Colorado is advancing a Sustainable Grazing Lands program to improve conservation, economic, and social outcomes on grazing lands. For a Sustainable Grazing Lands program to get to scale, it must be informed by solid science merged with robust planning and implementation. This poster presents the early results of a multi?year effort to develop a framework for defining and assessing sustainability.� To test this framework, we are collecting and assessing data from pilot ranches where we are implementing sustainable grazing planning and implementation.� ��We hypothesize that �if we systematically plan for better ecological, economic, and social outcomes�and adaptively manage to that plan�then domestic livestock grazing will lead to greater biodiversity, increased plant productivity, higher levels of carbon storage, and improved economic viability for ranching families.�� Across four pilot ranches in eastern Colorado we worked with ranchers to co-develop management plans.� We then sampled vegetation and soil organic carbon (SOC), and used MODIS and LANDSAT remote sensing data to assess vegetation productivity and, where possible, compare it to control ranches. �Also, Greater Prairie Chicken surveys were conducted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife on one ranch to assess effects on an important conservation target. Of the four ranches, two ranches are close to reference condition for vegetation composition, and one is serving an important role in conserving Greater Prairie Chicken.� Two other ranches were degraded when the study began because of past management.� For one degraded ranch dominated by annual grasses following drought, preliminary results indicate soil carbon levels that are only 50% of similar reference soils.� In the future. we intend to continue assessments of vegetation condition, productivity, wildlife responses, and SOC, as well as begin assessments on social and economic impacts.