Print PageIn his 2009 National Vision for America’s Forests speech, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack articulated his ”All Lands Approach,” recognizing that management of this country’s forests must be as boundary-less as the threats that face America’s forests. He urged managers to use a landscape-scale approach to providing abundant and clean water; maintaining resiliency to climate change stresses like fire, disease, and insects; and facilitating non-traditional markets. Scientists with the Rocky Mountain Research Station demonstrate application of the core values of this “All Lands Approach.”
Results/Conclusions
Forests provide over 60% of the water supply in the West. With a growing population, changing climate, and finite freshwater resource, sustaining healthy watersheds to protect the Nation’s water supply is more critical now than ever. Our research provides the scientific basis for land management decisions on federal, state, and private forests and grasslands to sustain and restore the ecological benefits that watersheds provide. In the Interior West, managing for ecosystem resilience and forest health requires strategies and restoration treatments to minimize risk, protect watersheds, and manage surface fuels. Mechanical restoration treatments can generate large quantities of woody biomass, which in turn can produce heat and electricity as well as liquid fuels and other chemical products. We are evaluating the feasibility of using forest treatment residues, studying regional preferences and perceptions of treatments, and collaborating with stakeholders to advance forest restoration tied to bioenergy production.
Population genetic data have been used to effectively delineate substructure, identify isolated populations, and define units of conservation. However, because these data rely on group or population statistics, species may mistakenly appear to be continuously distributed across a landscape. The field of landscape genetics uses individual or population genetic data, explicit spatial information, and associated covariates such as elevation, forest type, or distance to roads to make inference to environmental variables that influence species movement. Rocky Mountain Research Station scientists were seminal in the founding of the field and have been on the cutting edge of this discipline.
Managing adaptively to changing conditions will be paramount to our forests’ future. This represents a fundamental change from past management in which the focus was on commodity production. An “All Lands Approach” requires a shift in thinking to include multiple spatial scales ranging from local to landscape and regional scales. Examples of research that accomplish this and more will be explored.
