Arizona Issues
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To visit or learn more about our forest conservation program, contact Ethan Aumack.
To learn about restoration opportunities across the Kaibab Plateau, consider volunteering with us.
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Today’s forests suffer from too many small trees, too few large trees, altered nutrient cycles, road-induced fragmentation, and reduced biological diversity that includes imperiled — and even extinct — species. Most notably, they support uncharacteristically severe “crowning” fires that burn through treetops rather than along the forest floor, threatening people, plants, and animals.
Colorado Plateau forests: A unique and imperiled resource
The Colorado Plateau harbors a spectacular diversity of forestlands. Spanning the region’s mountains and high plateaus, these forests form the scenic backdrop and headwaters to its world-famous canyon country. The Plateau’s highest points are characterized by woodlands of ancient bristlecone pines, which give way to extensive forests of spruce and fir, mixed conifer, and aspen. At lower elevations, mixed conifer forests yield to mosaics of ponderosa pine, Gambel oak woodland and, eventually, pinyon-juniper along the lowest, driest locales. Each forest has a unique ecology; in total, they comprise a diverse flora and fauna, which includes species that are federally protected and found nowhere else in the world.
The Kaibab Plateau, in particular — which encompasses over 1.5 million acres of the Arizona Strip — is an ecologically invaluable “sky island.” Pinyon-juniper forests transition into ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, and spruce fir, dotted with aspen glades, montane meadows, and ancient sinkhole lakes. Due largely to its remoteness, the Kaibab Plateau contains some of the most intact, extensive, remaining old-growth ponderosa pine forest in the Southwest. It also plays host to endemic species such as the Kaibab squirrel, rare woodland raptors such as the northern goshawk, and the world-famous Kaibab mule deer herd.
The Kaibab Plateau lies mostly within the Kaibab National Forest. The National Park Service manages a smaller portion within Grand Canyon National Park, which forms the Plateau’s southern boundary. Bounded by Grand Staircase ~ Escalante National Monument to the north and the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument to the northeast, the Kaibab Plateau also provides a central link between protected core areas of the southern Colorado Plateau.
Unfortunately, like many Western forests, the region has been subject to a history of land use that prioritized commodity production over other values. Industrial logging, livestock overgrazing, fire suppression, killing of predators, and road construction have all compromised its ecological integrity and scenic quality.
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