A holistic strategy for adaptive land management

Abstract

New assessment and monitoring tools, including STMs, provide managers with new opportunities to optimize and adapt management. However, a more systematic strategy is needed to effectively integrate and apply these tools. Holistic adaptive land management (HALM) consists of two primary components: problem evaluation and management. Both components include monitoring. Adoption of a core suite of measurements and indicators for long-term monitoring helps ensure that the data collected can be used to address both current and future management questions. Flexible decision trees are used to integrate and apply these tools to specific management objectives. HALM can be used to prioritize management and restoration efforts, design cost-effective assessment and monitoring programs, and implement adaptive management on public and private lands, with a focus on rangelands. BLM's recent adoption of core indicators and methods already applied by the USDA NRCS have created a national standard for rangeland inventory and monitoring, creating opportunities for landscape-scale conservation efforts across public and private rangelands. Copyright © 2012 Soil and Water Conservation Society. All rights reserved.