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Brush (or shrub) encroachment is a global phenomenon whereby native and nonnative woody species displace grass species (Archer et al., 2017). The shift in a grass- to woody-dominated ecosystem results from complex interactions between many environmental drivers, physical controls, and historical land uses. A widespread conversion of grasslands to shrublands can significantly impact a variety of ecosystem processes and services such as soil erosion, water infiltration, and forage production (Archer & Predick, 2014). Range managers and land owners can employ several “brush management” treatments for reducing shrub/tree cover and help to restore encroached grasslands (Hamilton et al., 2004; Scifres et al., 1985).  

Brush management treatments are broken into four broad categories: biological, chemical, cultural, and mechanical. The following web resources details each method individually and for application in combination to maximize their effectiveness (e.g., Integrated Brush Management Systems) to meet management goals:

In 2018, a series of workshops were hosted in southeastern Arizona to discuss historical and current trends of brush cover; brush management methods and stories of application; and working collaboratively to apply their collective knowledge to meet brush cover goals. Details on this workshop series including agendas, presentations, and videos can be found here:

Much of the Western rangelands are a checkerboarded, interspersed land ownership of private, state and federal public lands. This creates difficulty in accomplishing landscape level vegetation management. One cultural tool that helps this diverse ownership with potentially conflicting opinions work together is Community-based Collaborative Conservation (Charnley, Sheridan and Nabhan 2014). These groups avert conflicts by focusing on evidence-based issues and group education (collaborative learning) in order to reach collective landscape level management decisions on shared goals regarding rangeland natural resources. Collaborative Conservation groups raise the voices of communities with concerns about impacts to their livelihoods because of environmental issues such as: landscape condition changes diminishing landscape productivity, erosion causing soil loss and water quantity and quality declines, endangered and threatened species management, wildfire mitigation and management, enforcement of regulations or fragmentation and development threats (Wilkins et al. 2020). Typically, these groups have a diverse representation of stakeholders from community members (producers, farmers and local residents) to industry and non-governmental organizations, universities as well as state and federal government agency representatives. Public land management agencies (e.g., U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) also have cooperation and collaborative partnership policy mandates for many of their land planning processes. This brings collective action to implement rangelands maintenance and restoration solutions to often complex, cross boundary and interrelated environmental issues. 

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