Global Rangeland Health Monitoring Framework

This rangeland monitoring framework provides a globally applicable, evidence-based approach for assessing
rangeland health and tracking change through time. It is designed to serve a range of applications, including
the emerging Rangeland Stewardship Council (RSC) Standard, where it can serve as a common framework
for monitoring ecological outcomes, assessing changes in health and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions
aimed at strengthening rangeland resilience.Despite growing interest in sustainable rangeland management and restoration, there is currently no widely accepted
framework for monitoring ecological outcomes across rangeland systems. Existing approaches vary considerably
in the indicators used, methods applied, and scales of assessment, making it difficult to compare results, aggregatedata, or demonstrate progress consistently across landscapes and regions. These challenges are particularly apparent
in rangelands, where high spatial and temporal variability in ecological conditions, climatic fluctuations, and diverse
management systems can complicate the interpretation of ecological change. While rangeland resilience also includes
important social, cultural and economic dimensions, a key gap currently lies in the measurement of biophysical
changes across rangeland landscapes.
This framework responds to that need by defining a harmonised set of indicators of rangeland health and associated
methodological principles that enable comparability across regions while allowing flexibility for adaptation
to local contexts.