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Southern
Interior Forest Region Range Reference Areas
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Range
Reference Areas are permanent installations designed to monitor
the impact of livestock, wildlife and other disturbances on
rangelands. Range Reference Areas (RRA's) consist of photo
points, unfenced transects and fenced exclosures.
Goals
The RRA
Program is co-ordinated by the Ministry of Forests with funding
from many Ministries and agencies and has the following goals:
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Define
Potential Natural Communities in support of Range Use Planning.
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Establish
a Provincial compilation of Potential Natural Community
descriptions.
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Establish
a provincial system of Range Reference Areas.
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Monitor
plant community changes.
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Share
range inventory information with range program staff, other
government agencies, and the public.
Range
Reference Area Types
Three
types of RRA's are found in the Southern Interior Region:
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Photo
points. These are permanently marked sites that will be
re-photographed through many years. A brief vegetation
description is made at each photo taking.
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Permanent
vegetation plots. These are permanently marked plots that
include an area for more rigorous vegetation monitoring
as well as a photo point.
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Exclosures.
These are small (usually 1 hectare) areas fenced so there
is no livestock use inside of them. Plots for determining
vegetation cover are done inside and out side of the exclosure
and photo points are done on the vegetation plots. Re-measurement
and photo taking happens through many years. Most exclosures
exclude livestock and allow some wildlife use while a
few also exclude large wildlife.
About
30 of the RRA's in this Atlas were developed under the auspices
of the FRBC Range Reference Areas Program; the others were
built before or after with other agency funding. Many of
the exclosures were established for other reasons by other
Agencies but are useful for the RRA program.
Monitoring
RRAs have had many different monitoring processes. The standard
for monitoring in the future at permanent plots and exclosures
is:
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Site
description (elevation, biogeoclimatic classification,
soils, slope, aspect etc.)
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Permanent
transects established (inside and out)
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Plant
cover estimates of grasses, flowers and small shrubs using
the Daubenmire method (50 per macroplot) or Point Intercept
method (500 per macroplot, as well as estimates of litter,
bare ground and cryptograms.
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Cover
of trees and tall shrubs using the Line intercept measurement
method.
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Permanent
photo points, normally 3 per macroplot
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All
of this material is kept on file at the Ministry of Forests
Southern Interior Regional Office in Kamloops and in the
District offices.
A contact person is listed for each RRA for further details
on the specific site and monitoring data.
For
general information contact the Regional office:
Rick Tucker
Range Agrologist
Southern Interior Forest Region
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