Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

General Meeting Notes (RP Annual Meeting, March 20-23, 2016, Kailua-Kona, HI)

An evening reception was held on Sunday, March 20, 2016 where John Tanaka, WERA 1008 Administrative Advisor, welcomed the group. Local host and rangeland extension specialist, Mark Thorne, with the University of Hawaii, Manoa, organized a social followed by an optional luau.

On Monday, March 21, 2016, Beth Burritt (UT), the Chair of the Rangelands Partnership (RP) opened the 2016 meeting on the Hawaii Community College Palamanui Campus. The opening was followed by a welcome from Mark Thorne (HI) and introduction of special guests and colleagues, including Dr. Mary Fletcher, director of the local campus.

The morning agenda included a review of RWP activities during the past year. Partnership members who attended the 2016 Society for Range Management (SRM) annual meeting in Corpus Christi, TX reported on trade show activity and poster session viewing and summarized the joint meeting with the SRM Outreach, Communication, and Website committee to discuss the proposal of a UN designated International Year of Rangelands. The discussion then turned to updates on collaborative grant-funded projects (e.g. NIFA-funded grants). John Tanaka and Sarah Noelle screened new videos from the “Discovering Our Nation’s Rangelands” project (NIFA Grant: 2014-46401-2259) which focuses on video stories that capture local knowledge from landowners and rangeland resource professionals. Lovina Englund reported on the end of grant cycle deliverables for projects related to the Higher Education Challenge Grant program (NIFA Grant: 2010-01828), spearheaded by the Range Science Education Council. The RP served a pivotal role is hosting websites and linking content in the GR database, including Rangeland Teaching Clearinghouse (http://rangelandswest.org/teachingclearinghouse/), Range at a Distance (http://rangelandswest.org/coursecatalog/), Rangeland College Recruiting (http://rangelandswest.org/careersandeducation/), and migration of the Wrangle website (http://wrangle.org) over to the new GR web platform. Other reports were made from former grant projects, with discussions of sustainability and maintenance into the future.

The afternoon session included discussion of international rangelands activities. Jeanne Pfander (AZ) and Jodee Kuden (AK) traveled to the Australian Rangelands Society meeting in Alice Springs, NT held April 12-16, 2015. While there, they promoted the GR website which now is the digital repository for the Rangelands Journal, a publication of the society, while deepening the connections with colleagues and soliciting opportunities for future partnerships. Other international updates were provided by Retta Bruegger (CO) who overviewed the Mongolian Rangelands and Resilience Project spearheaded by RP member Dr. Maria Fernandez-Gimenez at Colorado State University (http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/mor2-home) and funded by NSF, World Bank, USAID, and other foundation and collaborative supporters. Lastly, Partnership members involved in the effort to support a resolution for a designation of an International Year of Rangelands provided an update on progress and plans over the coming months. Barbara Hutchinson has been having extensive conversations with partners in partner organizations. Lovina Englund (ID) will serve as executive committee representative at the International Rangeland Congress, July 17-23 in Saskatoon, AB Canada to support further progress of this effort. The afternoon session rounded out with each state representative in attendance providing a brief update on their state websites. Updates included website usage analytics and various range related projects, publications and events. We welcomed several new rangeland professional members including Derek Scasta (WY), Kristie Maczko (WY), Tip Hudson (WA), and Retta Bruegger (CO). The annual business meeting was held prior to closing the Monday session. Programming and web design team members, (AZ) Matt Rahr and Craig Boesewetter, participated remotely to provide an update on the new GR website, launched just a few weeks before. Several partner members had already begun using the new state website templates available to them.

Tuesday morning (March 22, 2016) included a number of sessions. Ann Tanaka (WY) provided an update on the RP member website that serves as a repository of information and documents held by the member partners for purposes of doing business. Sheila Merrigan (AZ) gave an overview of the newly created guidelines for website and social media activity. One guideline section of particular importance to extension faculty is how to garner website analytics to meet requirements for cooperative extension reporting. These guidelines, presented by Ann Tanaka (WY), will prove helpful for communicating impacts to administrators. Another new e-manual was developed through the “Discovering Our Nation’s Rangelands” project team. John Tanaka (WY) presented the e-manual which focuses on the elements to develop videos similar to those produced as part of the project. The manual details information including planning steps, equipment, interview questions, and video editing and production. Shared manuals and guidelines will be available through the member website. An update on the various social media accounts and communication outlets, including a monthly newsletter, were provided by Sheila Merrigan, Amber Dalke and Sarah Noelle (all AZ). One social media campaign that has been a resounding success is the Range Nerd memes that are posted each Monday through the Facebook page. The memes have proven very successful in increasing the amount of traffic coming to the RP Facebook page in terms of page views and likes. Plans were made for additional campaigns and a brainstorming session was followed by several volunteers offering to assist in future efforts, including new themed campaigns. Partners agreed to assist with developing newsletter content and content for social media outlets. The communications discussion was followed by a hands-on workshop to learn the process for data entry into the new system and how to add metadata records into the database. The morning session rounded out with concurrent work group meetings that focused on the following: 1) marketing and social media, 2) content development; institutional repositories and data mining 3) partnership sustainability, and 4) updating state-hosted websites. The groups reported back in the form of lightning reports, covering main ideas and action items. Each group plans to circulate reports and check in periodically to ensure goals are met for the year.

A special guest speaker, Mr. Glen Fukumoto, Hawaii County livestock extension agent, presented a talk during lunch, overviewing the grass-finished beef industry in Hawaii. A number of small group work sessions followed in the afternoon, focusing on developing and organizing content for website topics areas. Groups reported out and identified someone to lead the effort throughout the year. The meeting closed with a brief summary and the local hosts agreed to make additional improvements to the annual meeting arrangement guidelines.

Following the close of the two-day session, members gathered at the historic Anna Ranch in Waimea (Kamuela) for a dinner and guest presentation by Dr. Billy Bergin, retired DVM and author of “Loyal to the Land: The Legendary Parker Ranch.”

A local tour on day three (Wednesday, March 23) offered opportunities to explore local ranching and other natural resource and agricultural values on the Big Island. Tour stops included the University of Hawaii Mealani Research Station, historic Hawaii Ranches, and the Paniolo Heritage Center. Keoki Wood, VP of Livestock Operations, provided insights into Parker Ranch, a prestigious working ranch on the Big Island with both historical and cultural significance.

Accomplishments

Objective 1: The redesign of the RangelandsWest portal has been completed.  It is now a two-part portal with the main portal being Global Rangelands (http://globalrangelands.org) with RangelandsWest (http://globalrangelands.org/rangelandswest) a U.S. portal under that. Social Media has been incorporated into the design.

Objective 2: The 19 western land grant universities each have a state rangelands website linked to the RangelandsWest website. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas have chosen to build their websites within the framework of the Global Rangelands template.  Nevada has used LibGuides as the framework.  California, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming have built their sites independently.

Objective 3: The global repository has been built and is maintained at the University of Arizona.  To date it holds archived copies of the journals Rangelands and Journal of Rangeland Management produced by the Society for Range Management, The Rangelands Journal produced by the Australian Rangeland Society, rangeland articles produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, articles produced by the Grassland Society of Southern Africa, articles abstracted in the Range Science Information System (http://rangescience.info), and articles in the Land Portal, and articles from the Altar Valley (AZ) Conservation Alliance.

Objective 4: We have continued to work at strengthening ties and collaborations among groups interested in on-line information provided to rangeland users, managers, and the general public. While in the early part of this project we were actively involved in the http://extension.org/rangelands part of eXtension, towards the latter part of this project, the decision was made to move our materials to the RangelandsWest website and discontinue active participation in eXtension as a group.

In addition, for the final year of the project, the following accomplishments were achieved:

• Successful annual meeting of the Rangelands Partnership (March 2016, Kailua-Kona, HI). Attendees (23 on-site; 1 virtual) representing 13 U.S. states.
• Major redesign of new Global Rangelands, Rangelands West, and state websites. Tour of new interface presented to membership.
• Progress on several grants received by different RWP partners for rangelands information projects.
  • USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant (HEC) - successful maintenance and updating of Range at a Distance repository of distance accessible courses on range topics; developed Teaching Clearinghouse as a space for sharing tools and resources for range teaching professionals (no resources yet and in Beta mode); additions to Careers & Education section of Rangelands West website. Analytics showing increased use.
  • NIFA Optimization grant to University of Arizona. Completed grant cycle and completed four objectives. (1) Established social media campaign based on user feedback involved in focus group sessions; (2) Redesigned suite of RWP websites based on user suggestions including doubling the resources available in the Global Rangelands database; (3) offered webinar on social media and linked to other relevant webinars; (4) circulated a sustainability survey to RP member institutions to gain guidance on future actions; and (5) began discussions and planning for a viable business model to fund Partnership and evolve with a new generation of members.
  • NIFA Renewable Resources Extension Act Grant - "Discovering Our National Rangelands" project by the University of Wyoming and the University of Arizona.
    • An educational video prepared through the grant aired on Out on the Land, a weekly television series on RFDTV. The episode focused on ranchers and agency conservation efforts in the Thunder Basin in Wyoming http://goo.gl/VxvthU.
    • Several other videos have been aired on Arizona Illustrated: Mexican Grey Wolf - http://youtu.be/Z0NGgZQJxTA, Generational Transfer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MpTdmwuEhA, and Jaguar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzM1-oUi8RA.
    • Video clip introductions to a variety of rangelands topics have been added to the website, and video interviews are being conducted to capture local knowledge of public and private land managers.  In addition, a training manual on videography was drafted to assist others to develop similar videos. 
• Guidelines were developed for social media and websites to increase effectiveness of campaigns and provide standards for communication to support cohesive messaging.
• Initiated and led the effort to create and International Year of Rangelands. Proposal has been presented to numerous groups and has not been renamed the International Year of Rangelands and Pasturelands with several activities designed to get support from other countries before it goes before the United Nations for a formal vote.

Hutchinson, B., J. Pfander, J. Tanaka, and J. Clark. 2011. Rangelands West/Global Rangelands, eXtension Rangelands, and the Range Science Information System: a suite of new web resources. Rangelands 33(4):55-63.

Tanaka, J., B. Hutchinson, M. Fraker-Marble, R. Frost, K. Launchbaugh, and M. George. 2012. Using rangeland on the web as a teaching resource. Rangelands 34:39-40.

Hutchinson, B. and G. Ruyle. 2013. Rangeland Management at Your Finger Tips: Introducing three new websites. The Rimrock Report 6(1):1-3.

Rangelands Partnership. 2014. Global Rangelands website. http://globalrangelands.org.

Rangelands Partnership. 2014. Rangelands West website. http://globalrangelands.org/rangelandswest.