Prescribed Herbivory Countywide Plan, Santa Barbara County

Prescribed grazing (also known as prescribed herbivory) enables fuel treatment in sloped and difficult to access areas where other vegetation management options are challenging or impractical. Grazing is being utilized to reduce fire risk in rural, semi-rural and urban areas of the county, but the practice is not widely spread, the region has few prescribed grazing contractors, and most landowners and agencies lack experience with it as an approach to vegetation management. The RPP team developed an initial spatial model showing areas of intermediate slope in high fire risk areas that may be candidates for prescribed grazing. Building on this initial model, we recommend developing a county-wide prescribed grazing plan to identify areas of high fire risk where herbivory is likely the most cost effective vegetation management tool, identify and engage willing landowners, identify funding sources/models and ways to aggregate projects for grant applications, and develop educational materials for landowners and agencies to accelerate adoption. The county-wide plan will pay special attention to vulnerable communities where prescribed grazing can reduce fire risk, with Lompoc, Los Alamos, New Cuyama and Sisquoc as likely candidates. MAP IDEA: show county-wide map of vulnerable communities overlain with areas that have potential for prescribed herbivory.