Biodiversity - The number and variety of organisms found within a specified geographic region.

Carbon credit - One ton of carbon that is stored in the soil and is equivalent to removing 3.67 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Conservation - The protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and of natural resources such as grasslands, soil, and water.

Climax - The last stage of natural community succession toward a dynamic equilibrium with environmental conditions in terrestrial ecosystems. The climax stage usually is more structurally diverse, more productive, and more efficient in cycling nutrients than earlier stages of community succession.

Conservation easement - A set of restrictions a landowner voluntarily places on his or her property in order to preserve its conservation values.

Desert rangeland - A type of grazing land consisting of a variety of native plant species that are well adapted to dry growing conditions. Some desert plants are highly palatable to livestock and wildlife. Others are not. Examples of plants indigenous to desert rangelands include black grama, tobosa, sand dropseed, perennial threeawn, redberry juniper, honey mesquite, broom snakeweed, and fluffgrass.

Fragmentation - The loss of wholeness in an ecosystem, habitat, law, and management that threatens ecosystem integrity and dependent functions and services, most especially biodiversity.

Ecosystem - A system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment.

Environment - The totality of external physical conditions that effect and influence the growth, development, and survival of plants and animals.

Forage - Refers to plants fed on by herbivores; most often refers to the foods of grazing and browsing animals.

Grassland - An area, such as a prairie or meadow, of grass or grass-like vegetation.

Habitat - The place or environment where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives and grows

Mid-grass rangeland - A type of grazing land that is producing or has the potential to produce moderately productive, native-grass vegetation. Grass species such as little bluestem, silver bluestem, and sideoats grama are considered mid-grasses.

Overgrazing - Reducing forage supply by grazing and browsing animals to the point where key forage species production is threatened or is at too low a level to sustain beneficial use. Overgrazing is a function of numbers and time.

Overstocking - Running, raising, carrying or maintaining more animal units of grazing animals than existing forage resources can support without degrading range conditions and reducing carrying capacity. Overstocking is a function of numbers.

Pastoral - Relating to or functioning as an agricultural enterprise or community devoted to or based on grazing livestock.

Photosynthesis - A process of organic synthesis in which solar radiation provides energy for combining the carbon from carbon dioxide and the hydrogen and oxygen of water to produce glucose and other simple compounds with oxygen released back to the environment.

Prairie - An extensive area of flat or rolling, predominantly treeless grassland.

Ranch - An agricultural workplace consisting of a large tract of land along with facilities needed to raise livestock, usually cattle.

Ranching - (a) The act of raising livestock; (b) to manage or work on a ranch

Range - Any land area that may be roamed over. More specifically, any land area producing forage for grazing and browsing animals.

Range management - The manipulation of grazing by large herbivores so both plant and animal production can be maintained or increased.

Rangeland - (a) Any expanse of land that provides suitable grazing for livestock and wildlife and is not cultivated, fertilized, or irrigated; (b) uncultivated land capable of providing habitat for domestic livestock and wildlife. Rangeland is sometimes referred to as range, ranchland, prairie, or grassland.

Rangeland agriculture - A form of agriculture based on grazing livestock on indigenous rangelands.

Renewable resource - A resource that can regenerate itself through biological reproduction or through biogeophysical cycles, such as forest, grassland, wildlife, soil, and water. Other examples of renewable resources include solar, thermal, and wind energy.

Restoration - An act of bringing back to a former condition.

Short-grass rangeland - A type of grazing land that can only produce short-grass vegetation due to climate and/or soil limitations. Grass species such as blue grama, buffalograss, curly mesquite, and western wheat grass are considered short-grasses.

Sustainable - Capable of being maintained at length without interruption, weakening, or loss in acceptability or quality. May also relate to a method or system of using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.

Stewardship - The careful and responsible management of human, physical, biological, and financial resources.

Tall-grass rangeland - A type of grazing that is producing or has the potential to produce highly productive, native-grass vegetation. Grass species such as big bluestem, yellow indiangrass, eastern gamagrass, and switchgrass are considered tall grasses.

Wildlife - Wild animals and vegetation, especially animals living in a natural, undomesticated state.

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