What are rangelands?

Rangelands are defined as any large expanse of land that provides suitable grazing for livestock and wildlife, and is not fertilized, cultivated, or irrigated. The natural vegetation of rangelands is dominated by native grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, and shrubs. When rangelands are properly managed, the land's soil, water, vegetation, and grazing animals function together as integral components of a natural ecosystem. Rangelands are sometimes referred to as either ranch-lands, grasslands, native grazing lands, shrublands, deserts, plains, savannas, or prairies.

Rangelands are a type of land that supports life and are an essential component of Earth's water, nutrient, and energy cycles. They are important to all people, both rural and urban alike. Examples of ecosystem goods and services that rangelands provide for the benefit of society include:

• habitat for grazing cultures, livestock, wildlife, and fish
• healthy food, natural fiber, and valuable by-products for human consumption
• recharge of below- and above-ground aquifers
• purification of water going into aquifers, streams, rivers, and oceans
• watershed protection and natural flood control
• maintenance of soil and ecological buffering capacity
• regeneration of soil and water fertility
• creation of new soil and increased carbon storage capacity
• provide vascular structure for delivering soil and water nutrients to plants
• removal of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" emissions out of the air
• transmission of life-supporting oxygen in the air
• sequestration of carbon in below and above-ground biomass
• detoxification and degradation of waste materials and pollution
• maintenance of diversity in native flora and fauna
• natural control of pathogenic and parasitic organisms
• natural habitat for pollinators of cultivated and wild plants
• opportunities for hunting, fishing, and other types of recreation
• a natural setting for cultural, social, and spiritual enrichment.
  
  

Rangelands are important to society because, when healthy, they play a small but important role in regulating our planet's climate. They also play an important role in mitigating and deferring long-term climate change, thereby minimizing the negative effects of man-made global warming on society.

About 50% of the land surface of the United States and a significant portion of the land surface of Canada and Mexico are classified as rangelands. Rangelands found in North America include the prairies and savannas on the Great Plains and the natural wetlands of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Other examples of rangelands are the

• prairie grasslands of Florida
• gulf coast prairies of Texas and Louisiana
• plains and savanna grasslands of South Texas
• live oak/bluestem savannas of Texas
• blackland prairies of Texas
• short-grass prairies of Texas Panhandle
• pinetree/wiregrass savannas of southeast United States, from east Texas to the east coast
• shrublands throughout the western United States
• palouse grasslands in Idaho and Washington
• Mexican deserts
• alpine meadows in the Rockies and Sierra Madres.
  
  

Rangelands occur in every region of North America and are the dominant type of land in arid and semiarid regions. For example, nearly 80% of the lands in the West are classified as rangelands, whereas only 7% of some areas near the East Coast are classified as rangelands.

In Texas, rangelands are found in the following geographic regions:

1. East Texas piney woods
2. Coastal prairie
3. Blackland prairie
4. Rolling Plains
5. Edward Plateau
6. High Plains
7. South Texas plains
8. Trans-Pecos

Rangelands of the United States, Canada, Mexico and other countries around the world are under tremendous pressure to provide healthy food, natural fiber, fresh water, breathable air, and other ecosystem goods and services to about 80 million additional people every year. Because rangelands occupy about 80% of our planet's land surface, their management and health is linked closely to the quality of life and survival of all people around the world.

Back