Rangeland Verification- Site Visit 2009
Every project (or in our case, pool of individual projects) must go through a third-party verification process. For a pool of ranches, this consists of an annual desk audit and an annual random/representative set of site visits. On July 1, 2009 Liz Mathern (NDFU) and Steve McComb (CCX) tagged along with verifier Aaron Ball of SES, Inc. and he verified a ranch located in Fall River Co, SD and Sioux Co, NE. This ranch is family owned and operated and is approximately 60,000 acres divided evenly between public and private lands. The ranch has extensive cross-fencing and water development and the four separate herds are run using a modified Savory flash rotation year-round grazing system (Dr. Joe, I hope I said that right!)
Checking for any signs of non-conformance/compliance
GPSing (this helps orient filed notes and photos back at the office)
Cross fence disappears over the horizon.
The north unit.
Liz and Aaron with "the Girls"