Fact Sheet / Brief
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Decades of overgrazing and wildfire suppression have let juniper trees grow large and spread far across sagebrush country, reducing habitat for sage grouse and other wildlife, and creating conditions for catastrophic wildfires.
In areas where fire is no longer a safe treatment, many land managers are stepping up to fill the role once played by wildfire.
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Wildfires are far more likely to result in harmful air quality and public health impacts than prescribed fires because they are unplanned and typically are much larger. Wildfires also last longer, and burn and consume (on average) more vegetation per acre than prescribed fires.
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This brief presents the following findings:
- Overall, mulching treatments in three Colorado conifer forest types promoted denser and more diverse native understory plant communities, particularly over the longer-term.
- The positive effect of mulching on understory plants was largely driven by the response of herbaceous plants; shrubs showed little response to mulching treatments.
- Exotic plants tended to be more common in mulched stands than in untreated stands.
- While understory plants in mulched stands could be heavily suppressed in localized areas where mulch contributed to a deep forest floor, these areas were rare.
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This technical note provides conservation practitioners with information on simple yet effective “Zeedyk” restoration techniques. The emphasis here is on structures that can be built by hand to address shallow headcuts or small incised channels (< 4 ft deep) impacting meadows and low-to-moderate gradient (< 3% slope) intermittent/ephemeral drainages in sagebrush rangelands. The note provides examples and lessons learned from partners in the Gunnison Climate Working Group who have been implementing a landscape-scale project using these techniques in the Upper Gunnison River Basin, Colorado. The note provides information and references to help practitioners identify opportunities, prioritize treatments, and design projects in similar watersheds across the West.
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Pinyon jays present both a conservation challenge and a paradox. While the species has declined, its preferred habitat (pinyon-juniper woodlands) has expanded, and in some areas to a large extent. It seems that population declines are not a function of reductions in habitat amount, but are related to changes in habitat quality. Up to now research on the species has been paltry,
and so details about the trend have only recently begun to surface.
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Recently published research can help land managers to identify important hubs and pathways of genetic connectivity for greater sage-grouse. This knowledge can be used in evaluating proposed development or management actions in terms of how they could disrupt, protect or restore critical places of conservation for greater sage-grouse habitat. The genetic evaluation technique, combined with mapping technology, can be used to evaluate land management decisions in terms of their effect on more than 350 species that live in North American sagebrush habitat.
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This study used historical and projected weather to predict changes in landscape composition and structure under two different climates, three restoration strategies, and two different fire management scenarios. They found that, without active restoration treatments, whitebark pine cannot survive. Management intervention actions such as planting rust-resistant seedlings and employing proactive restoration treatments, can return whitebark pine to some high mountain settings in western North America to create resilient upper subalpine forests for the future.
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This study introduces a number of newer concepts and methods related to transboundary risk governance for the state of Arizona. The methods fill a gap in existing risk assessment efforts by explicitly identifying transboundary exposure. We show how the methods and results can be used to better define the scale of risk and design effective risk governance institutions. Improving scale recognition within existing transboundary risk governance systems can help reduce inefficiencies in risk planning.
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The Western Governors’ Association (WGA) has addressed this need by surveying invasive species coordinators in WGA member states and territories Top 50 Invasive Species in the West to develop the “Top 50 Invasive Species in the West.” The compilation of terrestrial and aquatic invasive species includes highly-publicized examples such as cheatgrass, Quagga Mussels, tamarisk and the Emerald Ash Borer. The list also encompasses less well known, but still impactful, examples such as leafy spurge, Red shiner, Russian knapweed, and Golden algae.
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Smoke from wildfires is a public health concern. Smoke affected the entire Pacific Northwest region in 2015, and again in 2017. Scientists developed the BlueSky Modeling Framework that forecasts where smoke will travel, allowing public health agencies and communities to prepare for smoke impacts. Wildfires are here to stay. Scientists predict that with climate change, the annual area burned will continue to increase. Learning to coexist with wildfire means we will have to learn to coexist with some amount of smoke.