Get reliable rangeland science

In 2010, a task force convened by the Secretary of Energy concluded that, in the face of increasing global demand for energy, it is essential for the USA to immediately catalyze a domestic unconventional fuels industry to progress toward energy independence and to meet future food production needs. Rangelands that dominate much of the western half of the USA represent a major source of alternative energy resources. Accordingly, rangelands are likely to be substantially affected by policies in the USA to become increasingly energy independent. However, the impacts of developing such alternative energy sources, either on their own or in combination, are poorly defined. The Integrated Social, Economic and Ecological Conceptual (ISEEC) framework was developed by the Sustainable Rangeland Roundtable (SRR) to systematically identify biophysical-socioeconomic links that influence the delivery of ecosystem services and that are affected by alternative uses of rangelands. In this presentation I focus on three issues relating to the ISEEC framework: (1) How the framework can be applied to systematically compare the ecosystem service effects of exploiting rangeland-based biofuel, natural gas and wind energy resources; (2) How the framework can be used to select indicators for monitoring these effects; and (3) How data to quantify the economic indicators thus identified could be derived in order to operationalize them for monitoring purposes. While this approach does not provide a prescription for how society should move forward in developing unconventional energy resources on rangelands, it does potentially enhance coordination between federal, state and local agencies that are attempting to set polices and regulations for the sustainable development of such resources.