“Green and Brown” Grazing Strategy

The Link Between EBIPM and the “Green and Brown” Grazing Strategy
EBIPM is a step-by-step decision framework
developed for land managers to address the
underlying cause of invasion, rather than simply
controlling invasive weeds. Grazing is linked to
EBIPM in step 4 (EBIPM model on the previous
page) when land managers are making
decisions on the strategies and tools to
implement to effectively manage invasive
annual grasses.
The underpinnings of the EBIPM framework are
rooted in understanding the ecology of plant
community change or succession. The three
main causes of succession are site availability,
species availability and species performance.
These three causes help explain how plant
communities change in response to influences
or disturbances.
Instead of seeing invasive plants as the
problem, the EBIPM model helps guide
managers to identify and repair the ecological
processes that are not functioning. A shift in
thinking occurs when the presence of weeds is
recognized as a symptom of this ecological
breakdown. EBIPM can help managers
determine the true cause or causes of invasive
grass infestations. Use of the EBIPM framework
is a dynamic planning process to account for
the ecological complexity of the system.
Grazing is one tool that can be part of an
integrated management plan using the EBIPM
framework. When considering the ecological
processes affected by grazing, land managers
can use the “Green and Brown” strategy to
create available sites for desired species,
Species
Availability
ies
ance
we can move from the undesirable landscape on the left to the desirable landscape on the right.
The Link Between EBIPM and the “Green and Brown” Grazing Strategy - 9