Shrub-dominated rangelands are highly susceptible to land degradation, partly because low land values can encourage neglect, leading to poor stewardship and/or conversion to more lucrative but ecologically less desirably uses.

Recent efforts to assess the value of “ecosystem services” show that commodity values don't capture all the benefits of shrublands to society.

Efforts to prevent shrubland degradation and land type conversion can be enhanced if the value of noncommodity ecosystem services can be recognized.

Conceptual modeling of socio-ecological systems can point decision makers and stakeholders toward strategies to enhance shrubland resilience and protect ecosystem services.

Ecosystem services are the wide array of benefits that people gain from natural ecosystems but many are not paid for nor is their future supply guaranteed.

Many attempts are being made to define, measure, and value these natural services in order to secure their future—many of these methods are theoretical.

Finding practical ways to reward land managers for providing elevated levels of services and protecting the capacity of range resources to provide those services is a challenge—theory well precedes practice.

Range landscapes typically encompass heterogeneous ecological units dominated by native vegetation and have the capacity to provide different levels of ecosystem services depending on both site features and local management.

Ecological Site Descriptions are potentially valuable for organizing information related to management options to achieve ecosystem service objectives and provide benchmarks for stewardship rewards or compliance expectations.

Impermanence syndrome involves farmer apprehension or uncertainty about the future and leads to disinvestment in an agricultural operation as well as erosion of producer confidence.

We explored impermanence syndrome among New Mexico public rangeland cattle producers in order to assess perceptions of impermanence syndrome impact factors in the region.

Urban fringe effects, proximity to the US-Mexico border, multiple-use of public rangelands, public perception of public land ranching, as well as economic and government agency issues were identified as causes of ranching impermanence syndrome.

Mitigation of uncertainty and perceived impermanence threats to ranching would promote management and investments that promote long-haul planning for and enhancement of rangeland health.

Loss of grasslands to shrublands continues.

Demand for livestock products is expected to continue to grow.

Increased demand for red meat may stimulate rangeland livestock production.

Methods for increasing shrub use are needed to meet increasing forage demands.

The contemporary flora and fauna of North America represent the survivors of repeated waves of emigration through geologic time mixed with local evolutionary processes.

The rate of intercontinental species exchange has increased exponentially during the last 500 years due to intentional and accidental transport by humans.

Altered ecosystem composition, structure, and functionality are an inevitable consequence of species migration and naturalization.

Highly successful newcomers, such as cheat-grass, should be viewed as permanent additions to North American flora.

Researchers, land owners and managers, and policy makers would do well to acknowledge the new realities created by introduced species and focus efforts on 1) limiting new introductions, 2) assessing the variability of impacts across affected ecosystems, and 3) developing reasonable expectations and practices for mitigating effects while preserving core ecosystem functionality.

Ecological and economic thresholds are important considerations when making decisions about safeguarding or restoring degraded rangelands.

When degradation levels have passed a threshold, most managers figure it is either time to take action or too late to take action depending on the particular circumstances of the case.

Considerations of ecological responses and thresholds have largely come from rangeland studies involving perennial vegetation with long-lived cycles of causes and effects, whereas thinking on economic responses to management and thresholds have often been informed by studies of weeds and pests in annual pastures and crops where cycles are fairly short and responses to control are generally fast.

In many cases of rangeland degradation, an asymmetry may exist between opportunities for taking action on the basis of shorter-term ecological signals and where that action will actually yield an economic response, which is often in the intermediate to longer term.

In many cases the time for economically warranted action is well past the point at which low-cost ecological control options exist, leaving only scope for higher-cost treatments or capitulation.

Rangeland restoration projects have defied quantitative economic assessment because of a lack of data and information that document benefits.

From the literature, we assess the potential benefits of rangeland restoration efforts undertaken in New Mexico under the Restore New Mexico Project and conclude that the economic value of some of the goods and services generated are substantial, but little economic value exists for some of the ecosystem services used to justify the conservation effort.

Given the complexity in measuring changes in ecosystem services following restoration efforts, we are pessimistic about the potential of placing a quantitative economic value on many rangeland ecosystem services. Identifying the expected direction of change and relative magnitude of change may be more useful and feasible.

The successful establishment of riparian shrubs in the arid Southwest has been accomplished by using “deep planting” methods in riparian areas that lack overbank flooding.

This methodology involves the immediate exploitation of capillary fringe moisture by the existing root system of long-stem nursery stock and the deep burial of native shrub root crowns.

The methodology precludes or drastically reduces the need to apply irrigation water in arid and semi-arid environments in order to establish riparian shrubs and trees by deep planting long-stem native nursery stock.