Definitions

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Activity Plans - Allotment Management Plans (AMPs), Habitat Management Plans (HMPs), Watershed Management Plans (WMPs), Wild Horse Management Plans (WHMPs), and other plans developed at the local level to address specific concerns and accomplish specific objectives.

Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) - A group of people working together to develop common resource goals and resolve natural resource concerns. CRM is a people process that strives for win-win situations through consensus-based decisionmaking.

Desired Plant Community - A plant community which produces the kind, proportion, and amount of vegetation necessary for meeting or exceeding the land use plan/activity plan objectives established for an ecological site(s). The desired plant community must be consistent with the site's capability to produce the desired vegetation through management, land treatment, or a combination of the two.

Ecological Site - An area of land with specific physical characteristics that differs from other areas both in its ability to produce distinctive kinds and amounts of vegetation and in its response to management.

Erosion - (v.) Detachment and movement of soil or rock fragments by water, wind, ice, or gravity. (n.) The land surface worn away by running water, wind, ice, or other geological agents, including such processes as gravitational creep.

Grazing Management Practices - Grazing management practices include such things as grazing systems (rest-rotation, deferred rotation, etc.), timing and duration of grazing, herding, salting, etc. They do not include physical range improvements.

Guidelines (For Grazing Management) - Guidelines provide for, and guide the development and implementation of, reasonable, responsible, and cost-effective management actions at the allotment and watershed level which move rangelands toward statewide standards or maintain existing desirable conditions. Appropriate guidelines will ensure that the resultant management actions reflect the potential for the watershed, consider other uses and natural influences, and balance resource goals with social, cultural/historic, and economic opportunities to sustain viable local communities. Guidelines, and, therefore, the management actions they engender, are based on sound science, past and present management experience, and public input.

Indicator - An indicator is a component of a system whose characteristics (e.g., presence, absence, quantity, and distribution) can be measured based on sound scientific principles. An indicator can be measured (monitored and evaluated) at a site- or species-specific level. Measurement of an indicator must be able to show change within timeframes acceptable to management and be capable of showing how the health of the ecosystem is changing in response to specific management actions. Selection of the appropriate indicators to be monitored in a particular allotment is a critical aspect of early communication among the interests involved on the ground. The most useful indicators are those for which change or trend can be easily quantified and for which agreement as to the significance of the indicator is broad based.

Litter - The uppermost layer of organic debris on the soil surface, essentially the freshly fallen or slightly decomposed vegetal material.

Management Actions - Management actions are the specific actions prescribed by the BLM to achieve resource objectives, land use allocations, or other program or multiple use goals. Management actions include both grazing management practices and range improvements.

Objective - An objective is a site-specific statement of a desired rangeland condition. It may contain qualitative (subjective) elements, but it must have quantitative (objective) elements so that it can be measured. Objectives frequently speak to change. They may measure the avoidance of negative changes or the accomplishment of positive changes. They are the focus of monitoring and evaluation activities at the local level. Objectives may measure the products of an area rather than its ability to produce them, but if they do so, it must be kept in mind that the lack of a product may not mean that the standards have not been met. Instead, the lack of a particular product may reflect other factors such as political or social constraints. Objectives often focus on indicators of greatest interest for the area in question.

Range Improvements - Range improvements include such things as corrals, fences, water developments (reservoirs, spring developments, pipelines, wells, etc.) and land treatments (prescribed fire, herbicide treatments, mechanical treatments, etc.).

Rangeland - Land on which the native vegetation (climax or natural potential) is predominantly grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, or shrubs. This includes lands revegetated naturally or artificially when routine management of that vegetation is accomplished mainly through manipulation of grazing. Rangelands include natural grasslands, savannas, shrublands, most deserts, tundra, alpine communities, coastal marshes, and wet meadows.

Rangeland Health - The degree to which the integrity of the soil and ecological processes of rangeland ecosystems are sustained.

Riparian - An area of land directly influenced by permanent water. It has visible vegetation or physical characteristics reflective of permanent water influence. Lakeshores and streambanks are typical riparian areas. Excluded are such sites as ephemeral streams or washes that do not have vegetation dependent on free water in the soil.

Standards - Standards are synonymous with goals and are observed on a landscape scale. Standards apply to rangeland health and not to the important by-products of healthy rangelands. Standards relate to the current capability or realistic potential of a specific site to produce these by-products, not to the presence or absence of the products themselves. It is the sustainability of the processes, or rangeland health, that produces these by-products.

Terms and Conditions - Terms and conditions are very specific land use requirements that are made a part of the land use authorization in order to assure maintenance or attainment of the standard. Terms and conditions may incorporate or reference the appropriate portions of activity plans (e.g., Allotment Management Plans). In other words, where an activity plan exists that contains objectives focused on meeting the standards, compliance with the plan may be the only term and condition necessary in that allotment.

Upland - Those portions of the landscape which do not receive additional moisture for plant growth from run-off, streamflow, etc. Typically these are hills, ridgetops, valley slopes, and rolling plains.