Webinar
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The Fort Belknap Indian Community (FBIC) Native Seed & Grassland Restoration Program was designed to meet DOI, BLM, and Plant Conservation and Restoration Program Strategic Goals, via partnerships with FBIC and the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER). Launched in 2019, and led by an Indigenous PI, this Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)-based program focuses on developing genetically appropriate native plant material for habitat restoration; inventorying and prioritizing plant populations; and implementing and assessing restoration efforts through monitoring. Working on BLM lands, in consultation with Aaniiih and Nakoda elders and employing and empowering tribal youth, we are using Assessment, Inventorying, and Monitoring (AIM) protocols to identify plant populations, and then making collections from them for the Seeds of Success (SOS) program. Our long-term goal is to empower FBIC in creating a community-led greenhouse program to grow out native seeds, focusing on culturally significant species, thereby benefitting the community financially in increasing BLM Stock and Foundation seed amounts to use on larger programs and for restoration of FBIC and other Native American lands. FBIC has invited us to expand seed collection onto FBIC land, to help the community advance restoration efforts of degraded rangelands to support Greater sage-grouse and bison conservation.
Webinar recording.
Description:
- Articulate successful applications of Good Neighbor Authority for tribes, counties, and states;
- Provide examples of when tools like Good Neighbor Authority are unlikely to be successful;
- Discuss how to use tools from the Tribal Forest Protection Act;
- Discuss how to use tools from the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act; and
- Discuss how to use Stewardship Contracting.
Presenters:
- Rob Farrell, Virginia State Forester;
- Jim Durglo, Intertribal Timber Council Wildland Fire Technical Specialist;
- Lynn Sholty, USDA Forest Service Grants and Agreements Specialist; and
- Nils Christoffersen, Wallowa Resources Executive Director.
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During this virtual workshop we will share case studies and lessons learned from the field, showcase multiple scales of potential operational delineations (PODs) work that have been utilized and adapted for a range of applications, identify necessary developments in collaborative fire planning and PODs, and much more.
The workshop will be hosted by RMRS’s Wildfire Risk Management Science (WRMS) team. The WRMS team co-developed PODs and other fire planning tools in collaboration with local experts. These tools have been widely adopted by national forests and other fire and land management groups.
The workshop is designed for a variety of audiences including fuels planners, FMOs, line officers, management planners, community collaboratives, scientists, state and local fire and fuel managers, and consultants. Interested and new users are encouraged to attend.
Webinar recording.
Pollinators are essential to the survival and health of natural ecosystems but are declining worldwide. Because of this, there is urgent need to restore pollinators and the services they provide. One way to address this need is to use pollinator-friendly plants in revegetation projects (roadsides, fire rehabilitation, etc.), but land managers lack information about which plants are best for pollinators. RMRS and partners at Montana State University are assessing the pollinator-friendliness of native plant species that are available for revegetation in Montana to produce a guide identifying the best species mixes to support the greatest number of species and abundance of pollinators. We found that plant species vary widely in the abundance, diversity, and community of pollinator species that each attract. However, several plant species are superstars that are visited by most pollinator species across a diversity of habitats. These focal-plant species can form a backbone in seed mixes to successfully restore diverse and stable plant and pollinator communities.
Webinar recording.
Area burned by wildland fire has been increasing since the mid-1980s across much of the US. But the effects of fire on vegetation and soil – what we call burn severity or fire severity – is maybe the more important measure, ecologically speaking. Stand-replacing, or high-severity fire, for example, is more likely than low-severity fire to negatively impact ecosystems by increasing post-fire erosion potential, catalyzing conversions from forest to non-forest, and reducing carbon stocks. While high-severity fire has its place in the natural cycles of some ecosystems, it also can pose societal problems by jeopardizing human safety and infrastructure. In this webinar, we will briefly describe new approaches to mapping the severity of past fires using satellite imagery and cloud-based computing. The main focus of this webinar, however, will highlight recent advancements in modeling and predictive mapping of near-future burn severity; the mapped products predict the probability of high-severity fire, if a fire were to occur. Maps characterizing fire severity, whether they characterize past fires or represent predictions of the near-future, provide important information for managers and scientists who are tasked with managing fuel and wildland fire.
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Major concerns after wildfires are the increased runoff and erosion due to loss of the protective forest floor layer, loss of water storage, and creation of water repellent soil conditions. To reduce the potential postfire erosion and flooding, various postfire mitigation treatments are commonly used on highly erodible areas when downstream values-at-risk are high. We have developed numerous online soil erosion prediction tools to allow for better post-fire land management decision-making. We have validated our model predictions with field studies throughout the Western US that encompass a range of rainfall regimes including monsoonal rains in the southwest (Arizona and New Mexico), thunderstorms in the Colorado Front Range and Northern Rockies, and wet frontal systems in Southern California and various erosion control treatments. For example, mulch treatments (agricultural straw, wood strands, wood shreds) reduce erosion and can be effective even for the higher intensity rainfall events. Our research results have brought a major shift in post-wildfire assessment methods and erosion management strategies.
Webinar recording.
Drought can exacerbate wildfire frequency, intensity, and severity. This webinar explores wildfire management approaches based on ecological principles, including those that embed traditional ecological knowledge.
Presenters: Dr. Jeremy Littell, Research Ecologist, Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center, USGS
Bill Tripp, Deputy Director of Eco-Cultural Revitalization, Department of Natural Resources, Karuk Tribe
Webinar recording.
This webinar focuses on planning, restoration, and recovery actions that strengthen ecosystem resilience, mitigate the impacts of natural disasters, and realize co-benefits.
Presenters: Dr. Jennifer Cartwright, Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center, USGS
Rachel M. Gregg, Senior Scientist, EcoAdapt
Hannah Panci, Climate Change Scientist and Robert Croll, Climate Change Program Coordinator, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission
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Satellite data can provide weekly updates of phenology (NDVI, a measure of “greenness”) at a resolution of 15 acres. The PhenoMap web map was created to place these greenness images in an interactive format for managers to view local and regional changes in phenology. PhenoMap also helps to place current values of greenness in a historical context so managers can understand how this week’s value compares to previous year greenness values for the same week. In order to see how well the satellite data was capturing “green-up” and “brown-down”, satellite data was compared to cameras capturing changes in phenology in the various vegetation types of the western United States. Additional effort has also been made to compare the satellite data to grass development using rangelands in western South Dakota as a model grassland system. We will introduce the PhenoMap tool and share results from these validation efforts.
Webinar recording.
Prescribed fire can result in significant benefits to ecosystems and society. Examples include improved wildlife habitat, enhanced biodiversity, reduced threat of destructive wildfire, and enhanced ecosystem resilience. Prescribed fire can also come with costs, such as reduced air quality and impacts to fire sensitive species. To plan for appropriate use of prescribed fire, managers need information on the tradeoffs between prescribed fire and wildfire regimes. In this study, we argue that information on tradeoffs should be presented at spatial and temporal scales commensurate with the scales at which these processes occur and that simulation modeling exercises should include some realistic measure of wildfire probability. To that end, we synthesized available scientific literature on relationships between prescribed fire and wildfire regimes, and their associated ecological and societal effects, focusing specifically on simulation modeling studies that consider wildfire probability and empirical and modeling studies that consider prescribed fire and wildfire regimes at spatial and temporal scales beyond individual events.