Building Knowledge of Sustainable Rangeland Management Using Information Technology - Northern Great Plains Partnership

Building Knowledge of Sustainable Rangeland Management Using Information Technology - Northern Great Plains Partnership

Summary

Range Extension Specialists and librarians participating in the NCR SARE PDP project again met with their counterparts from the Western Region SARE PDP in Tucson in spring 2006. There they established an on-going organizational structure for RangelandsWest that ultimately resulted in the establishment of a Multistate Research Project, WERA1008, “Rangelands West Partnership”. Extension educators that attended the Information Outreach workshop in 2005 developed and distributed specialized resource tools for the region.

Objectives/Performance Targets

1. Provide reliable and accessible information about sustainable rangeland management by building on the foundation set by the Western Rangelands Partnership
2. Train state range Extension specialists, county-based extension personnel and federal land management advisors in sustainable rangeland management practices and the effective use of information technologies to better serve the ecological and economic needs of their constituencies.
3. Work with Western Rangelands Partnership to build a comprehensive Web gateway on rangeland management as part of the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC) initiative.
4. Expand understanding of sustainable rangeland management approaches within the North Central Region
5. Improve information technology skills of range Extension specialists, county-based extension personnel, and federal land management advisors
6. Create a RangelandsWest Web site for each of the participating NCR states (SD, ND, KS, NE) with reliable sustainable rangeland management information and make it readily accessible through the RangelandsWest Web gateway.
7. Develop a content module pertaining to sustainable rangelands practices on each NCR state’s RangelandsWest Web site.
8. Build an overarching structure for sustainable rangelands content, with introductory text and navigational pages leading to the content developed by each state.
9. Enter metadata into the RangelandsWest Web site database, making it accessible to users of the national AgNIC site via a web services connection.

Accomplishments/Milestones

• Joint meeting between the Extension Specialists and librarians from SD, ND, NE, and KS and the participants in the RangelandsWest project from the WR SARE was held in Tucson in spring 2006.
• NCR SARE and WR SARE participants established an on-going organizational structure for RangelandsWest.
• Multistate Research Project, WERA1008, “Rangelands West Partnership” was authorized.
• NCR SARE and WR SARE participants in the Tucson meeting finalized the organizational “tree” structure of the national website.
• Continued effort to populate state websites with resources and links.
• Extension Educators that attended the Information Outreach workshop in fall 2005 developed and distributed specialized resource tools for the region. These include a DVD containing resources addressing drought response, which has been distributed very widely in the region. Another example is a pasture allocation tool that was developed through the use of the literature available on the RangelandsWest website.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Access to reliable information on sustainable rangeland management continues to increase through the RangelandsWest website. It is available for specialists, educators, ag advisors, farmers, ranchers, and land managers throughout the United States. Of particular importance is the regionally-appropriate information that is included due to the efforts of the specialists and librarians in each participating state. County-based agricultural advisors continue to become more adept at accessing this information, increasing in their knowledge of sustainable rangeland management principles, and utilizing it for the benefit of their clientele. The establishment of WERA1008 is particularly important in that it contributes to ongoing efforts to improve web-based access to reliable sustainable rangeland management information.

Collaborators: