Type: report

Article abstract: This report presents recommendations for adaptive management and monitoring on grazed conserved rangelands in San Diego County. The Grazing Monitoring Plan and Pilot Project (GMPPP) was initiated in 2021 at Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve (RJER) and Hollenbeck Canyon Wildlife Area (HCWA) as part of the implementation of the Management and Monitoring Strategic Plan (MSP) Roadmap (SDMMP and TNC 2017) of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and the San Diego Management and Monitoring Program (SDMMP). The MSP Roadmap provides a biologically based foundation that supports decision making and sets funding priorities for managing and monitoring species and vegetation communities on conserved lands in western San Diego County. MSP species were identified based on their limited distribution, threats, or need of management in the MSP area. The GMPPP includes a comprehensive literature review (Motamed et al. 2021) and three years of research on the potential to enhance conservation values in grassland and coastal sage scrub habitats of San Diego County (Bartolome et al. 2024). These, together with the research team’s long experience developing conservation management and monitoring programs on other rangelands in California, are the basis of this report. The recommendations in this report are intended to provide a framework for developing empirically based adaptive management and monitoring programs that can be applied in conserved rangelands across San Diego County and elsewhere. Within this framework, management and monitoring actions are developed on a site-specific basis based on site characteristics and dynamics, conservation goals and objectives, and models of site-specific resource responses to management.