On the Ground • Depletion of conventional oil and natural gas reserves, rising world demand for fossil fuels, and changing geo-political conditions necessitate that the United States aggressively develop both renewable and nonrenewable energy along with increasing energy conservation and efficiency. This will affect how rangelands are used, create income opportunities for ranchers, and expand employment opportunities for professional range managers. • Air and ground water contamination and increased earthquakes could be serious environmental challenges from expanded development of unconventional fossil fuels. Renewable energy development involving wind, solar, and biomass also have environmental hazards. Rangeland managers in the future must be prepared to minimize and ameliorate environmental damage from different types of energy developments while optimizing energy production with traditional rangeland uses. • In our view, government policies encouraging energy conservation could significantly reduce rangeland losses to urban and ex-urbanization, dependence on foreign oil imports and carbon emissions. They would also extend the longevity of fossil fuel reserves providing a hedge against possible failure of renewable energy sources to meet future needs. The Rangelands archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform March 2020
Practical, non-technical peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol 1, 1979 up to 3 years from the current year. More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.