Webinar
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The webinar “An All Lands Approach to Grazing Management” examined cross-boundary strategies for cooperative grazing management between a variety of federal and state agencies in Idaho. These efforts seek to achieve a more flexible management system across ownership boundaries to better respond to various rangeland challenges. Moderator: Curtis Elke, State Conservationist for Idaho, USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service. Panelists: Karen Launchbaugh, Director, University of Idaho Rangeland Center; Dustin Miller, Administrator, Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation; Chris Black, Chair, Board of Directors, Idaho Rangeland Resource Commission; June Shoemaker, Idaho State Director for Resources, Bureau of Land Management. This webinar is part of the series for the National Forest and Rangeland Management Initiative, the Chairman’s Initiative of WGA Chair and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.
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Bear grass (Xerophyllum tenax) and California Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta var. californica) are two Nontimber Forest Products (NTFPs) harvested by American Indians for basket weaving in the Pacific Northwest. Good quality leaves and stems for basket weaving are reliant on the periodic burning of these plant species. In this webinar we will discuss how fire and other ecological variables affect the growth and quality of these species, the collaborative management of these plants by American Indians and public agencies, and what implications our findings have for the future management of these resources.
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One of the greatest challenges facing landscape conservation is how to ensure ecosystem-wide conservation goals, such as those articulated in Landscape Conservation Designs, can effectively inform local management plans and actions. Developing feasible conservation goals and useful landscape planning products requires participation by local stakeholders. However, opportunities for these stakeholders to engage in planning processes are often limited. This webinar will examine the role of local stakeholders and human dimensions thinking in transboundary resource conservation. Catherine Doyle-Capitman, Doctoral Candidate at Cornell University, will highlight the role of local stakeholders in bridging the gap between conservation planning and management implementation. She will then present best practice guidance for engaging local stakeholders and integrating social data into landscape conservation decision processes.
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In the United States, multi-jurisdictional fire suppression demand is met by a national-scale pool of suppression resources that come from a variety of jurisdictions and provide a wide range of skills, experience, and associated mobility limitations and logistical needs. We designed and implemented an online survey of U.S. Forest Service employees who hold direct or indirect responsibility for ordering suppression resources; our main research objective was to identify the field’s perceptions of resource importance, scarcity, and substitutability. Importantly, we asked questions to help distinguish between resources that are high value, scarce, and without substitutes versus ones that are low value, readily available, and highly substitutable. We hypothesized that resource ordering patterns change with elevated resource scarcity and that, because of this, true resource demand and frequent resource associations and substitutions are not reflected in dispatch summary reports. In this webinar, we will present an overview of our survey results, including future research and analysis plans. Additionally, we will relate the discussion back to firefighter risk, exposure, and risk transfer themes.
Crystal Stonesifer, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Human Dimensions, presents.
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Join Climate Science for a discussion on how climatic changes can influence wildland fire activity across the globe and how these critical fire weather variables have changed over the last 40 years.
These changes in key weather variables have combined to both lengthen the fire season and increase the fire weather severity within the fire season. With more area burned each year, the Forest Service is exploring innovate ways to finance conservation and restoration work. The Blue Forest Conservation’s Forest Resilience Bond invests in restoration projects that protect forest health, mitigating both wildfire and drought risk. Contracting with both public and private beneficiaries to monetize the multifaceted benefits of forest restoration, the Forest Resilience Bond creates value for a diverse set of stakeholders (including the US Forest Service, water and electric utilities, private water-dependent companies, state governments, and insurance companies).
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In this webinar, Frank Lake, Research Ecologist with the Pacific Southwest Research Station will present findings from workshops held in 2012 and 2014 to investigate how traditional and western knowledge can be used to enhance wildland fire and fuels management and research. The workshops engaged tribal members, managers, and researchers to identify challenges and formulate solutions regarding cross-jurisdictional work, fuel reduction strategies, and wildland fire management and research involving lands important to tribes. A key conclusion from the workshops is that successful management of wildland fire and fuels requires collaborative partnerships that share traditional and western fire knowledge through culturally sensitive consultation, coordination, and communication for building trust. Dr. Lake will present a framework for developing these partnerships based on workshop discussions.
Bruce Roundy, Brigham Young University, discusses indicators of resilience and resistance of sagebrush steppe communities associated with soil temperature and water availability as learned from SageSTEP.
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While the number of acres burned annually by uncharacteristic wildfire continues to grow, it is becoming exceedingly important for agencies to identify opportunities to use wildfire to meet multiple land management and resource objectives. When conditions allow for unplanned ignitions to be managed for one or more of these objectives, it may be appropriate to use wildfire during the peak of the traditional fire season. Management response to wildland fire on federal lands is based on objectives established in the applicable Land/Resource Management Plan and/or Fire Management Plan. Objectives are affected by changes in fuels, weather, topography; varying social understanding and tolerance; and involvement of other governmental jurisdictions having different missions and objectives. Coordination with resource specialists and development of mutually agreed to objectives is fundamental to being successful in achieving land and resource objectives with wildfire. This webinar discusses recommendations for implementing this process using case studies incorporating Mexican spotted owl management objectives into wildfire management and post-fire monitoring. Presented by Shaula Hedwall, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Wesley Hall, Coconino National Forest.
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Local plans, such as the comprehensive plan, economic development plan, and transportation plan, establish policies that are intended to guide a community’s day-to-day land use decisions and capital facilities expenditures. These policies have a major impact on whether people and property are exposed to natural hazards as well as the extent to which they are vulnerable to injury and damage. Therefore, it is imperative that these policies are based on best available hazard data, including the nature of local hazards, the vulnerability of people and property, and the potential destruction that can be caused by these hazards. This hazard data is the foundation on which natural hazard mitigation plans are developed.
Join the FEMA Region 10 Mitigation Planning Team and guest speakers as they look at opportunities for integration, review examples, and identify resources to integrate plans into local plans.
This webinar describes a project that uses management-related variation in grazing by both feral horses and livestock as well as five years of field work to assess how both greater sage-grouse and the habitats on which they depend might be influenced by grazing.
The research team includes James S. Sedinger, Tessa L. Behnke, Levi Jaster and Phillip A. Street from the University of Nevada Reno.