New Frameworks Guide Conservation Action
WASHINGTON, April 6, 2021 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is unveiling new action-based frameworks to increase conservation work to address threats facing America’s working rangelands. These frameworks are designed to benefit both agriculture and wildlife in sagebrush and grassland landscapes of the western United States.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) partnered with state-level organizations from across the West to develop the new frameworks to combat the most severe and large-scale threats: woody encroachment, land-use conversion, exotic annual grass invasion and riparian and wet meadow degradation. More than one million acres of Western rangelands are lost annually to invading non-native grasses, plows, or land development. The frameworks will help guide voluntary conservation work over the next five years and will contribute to USDA’s efforts to make our nation a leader on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience.
