Get reliable rangeland science

Globally, rangelands contribute to biodiversity (above-and below-ground), climate change adaptation and mitigation, ecosystem restoration, wildlife habitat and human well-being. However, these critically important ecosystems are degrading at unprecedented rates, due to lack of investment and awareness. Further limiting these investments are the vast knowledge gaps on the status of rangeland health, including the ability to reliably measure the impact of rangeland restoration interventions on key indicators of ecosystem health. We propose that building and implementing a global rangeland monitoring framework, aimed to build consistent datasets, will enable the comparison of management practices across diverse systems, track the efficacy of interventions over time, and provide the evidence-base to inform policy and practice. In addition, we see an additional benefit of such a system is the contribution to the various standards around value chains from rangeland systems, ultimately providing additional income t o pastoralists and value chain actors. Within the STELLAR (Sustainable Investments for Large-scale Rangeland Restoration) project, we have conducted a review of standards and their associated monitoring frameworks across the rangeland value chains in the Americas, Central Asia, and Africa. We collated the variables and indicators within each framework and found wide disparities in indicators monitored, monitoring techniques, and assumptions made. Variations in how data are collected and which variables are included demonstrated a lack of consistency across frameworks. For example, the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) is a comprehensive field based method that collects multiple indicators of soil health, land degradation and vegetation diversity, but does not include local knowledge or socio-economic variables. We call for a framework that combines systematic field-based assessments, with citizen science and remote sensing to deliver accurate assessments of rangeland health indicators at scales relevant to stakeholders (pastoralists, value chain actors, land managers, standards experts, and policy makers) and to track interventions over time.