Training

See also: Central Coast Rangeland Coalition, Sustainable Human SystemsOn Friday September 30th, the Elkhorn Slough Coastal Training Program hosted a day long workshop on residual dry matter (RDM). RDM is a term referring to the accumulation of dead plant material and is used in rangelands as a monitoring tool to indicate watershed health and rangeland productivity. RDM is used by land management agencies as they oversee ranchers and by conservation groups when they create easements for privately held lands. There has been decades of science and use of RDM in California. The goals of this workshop were: teach participants what RDM is and why they might use it; teach participants how agencies use RDM in practice and how to best apply it in their work; teach participants how to set up an RDM monitoring plan, and; train participants how to monitor RDM in practice (field-based training). Highlights of the workshop were: clarification on the scale and methodology for monitoring RDM in oak woodlands and savannas; review of pasture-based field mapping at the large scale as an important methodology for monitoring, and; realization that RDM was originally developed for maintaining rangeland productivity (and it is still most appropriately used for such). Audiences attending the workshop were: public and private land managers, including ranchers and other conservation lands stewards; agency regulators; agency advisors, and; biological consultants.