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On the Ground • Many public agencies and land trusts that manage grazing lands are interested in using remote sensing technologies to make their monitoring programs more efficient but lack the expertise to do so. In California annual grasslands, using remote sensing is especially challenging because the dominant vegetation is not detectable by standard technologies at a key time of year for monitoring. • The Nature Conservancy of California (TNC) has developed RDMapper, an easy-to-use web-based tool that uses satellite-based productivity estimates, rainfall records, and compliance history to identify management units at risk of being below the required level of residual dry matter (RDM). • TNC successfully used RDMapper in 2015 and 2016 to predict compliance across approximately 47,000 hectares of conservation easement grasslands, while reducing monitoring costs by 42%. • We also applied RDMapper on six non-TNC properties (approximately 5,700 hectares) owned by two public agencies. We correctly predicted RDM compliance on 74% of the management units and found the method to be successful overall, with several challenges mainly relating to meeting RDMapper’s data requirements. • Our study illuminated potential benefits, hurdles, and best practices for landowners interested in using RDMapper to increase monitoring efficiency, and made recommendations to improve it. • Adding RDMapper to conventional monitoring toolkits could be game-changing for public lands management agencies that currently struggle to manage vast grasslands.

On the Ground California's Mediterranean climate zone supports grasslands that are biologically diverse. Livestock grazing is being increasingly used to promote native species diversity at both the pasture and landscape scales. Several federally and state-listed vertebrates and insects respond positively to grazing to improve habitat by opening and lowering grassland vegetation. More work is needed on enhancement of native plants. Research results need to be more extensively applied, tested, and monitored under variable conditions.

Author(s): Barry, Sheila; Bush, Lisa; Larson, Stephanie; Ford, Lawrence D | Abstract: Grazing livestock do a lot more than just fill their bellies with wild grasses. Their grazing also helps keep potential wildfire fuels in check and enhances habitat opportunities for native plants, birds, frogs, salamanders, and more. Read all about it!

Author(s): Barry, Sheila; Larson, Stephanie; Ford, Lawrence D; Bush, Lisa | Abstract: Time was, herded livestock could be led over the wide landscape to wherever the feed and water were best, but fences and property rights restrict most modern herds to much smaller ranges. Time and space are big issues for today's herder.

wenty-three years ago, a group of University of California professors and administrators founded the Natural Reserve System (NRS), a collection of littledisturbed natural lands and waters. The system was intended to preserve research and teaching opportunities in the natural environment for all interested and qualified individuals, whether or not they are associated with the University of California. The founders reasoned that a centralized comprehensive plan could overcome provincialism and disparate efforts on the widespread University of California campuses and that the revolution of environmental awareness in the 1960s made evident the imperative of preserving remnant natural areas (Norris 1968). Today the NRS, with 27 reserves (3 more are in progress), is near the completion of its acquisition phase and is beginning the difficult process of developing and operating its reserves. This article examines the NRS The system is completing its acquisition phase and

At many universities nationwide, the new discipline of conservation biology has sparked broad interest. Recently developed courses, like the field of conservation biology itself, have successfully brought together biologists from many disciplines, not just in one classroom, but united by an urgent goal–nature conservation.