Restoration Program

	Five Two-Person Teams Gathered Ecological Data at More than 650 Plots Scattered Across the Ranch Allotments

Conservation and restoration opportunities across the Kane-Two Mile project area are incredible.  Grazing permits associated with the ranches cover a vast, dramatic, and spectacularly varied area, ranging from the Paria River at 3,000 feet in elevation on the east, to subalpine forests and meadows at 9,000 feet in elevation atop the Kaibab Plateau.  Numerous threatened, endangered, and sensitive species inhabit the area.  Vast old growth ponderosa pine forests cover the Kaibab Plateau.  Expansive reaches of diverse ecosystems extend across an elevation gradient ideal for tracking the effects of climate change in the Southwest. 

The ranches cover some of the most remote ground in the lower 48 states.  Due to their remoteness, they have not been threatened–yet–by urban sprawl or large-scale habitat conversion.  However, they have been used heavily during the past century.  Industrial logging, grazing, and fire suppression have dramatically altered natural systems in many areas, and reduced habitat quality for a number of ecologically valuable and/or imperiled species.  With the assistance of our Science Advisory Council (see below), and working with agency staff, other stakeholders, and hundreds of volunteers, we hope to assist in initiating and implementing scientifically rigorous and ecologically appropriate livestock management and restoration activities across the ranches – from site-specific to landscape-scale.

Through our first-year baseline ecological assessment (described below) we have identified several top priority management and restoration needs across the ranches.  First, as a conservation-focused livestock grazing permittee, we will graze livestock in a manner that mitigates or avoids ecological impacts to sensitive ecosystems, including riparian areas at all elevations, lower elevation upland communities, and habitats for sensitive species.  Second, restoration activities should be focused in ecosystem types that are of high conservation value, significantly imperiled/degraded, and likely to respond positively to active restoration efforts.  We hope to restore appropriate composition, structure, process and resiliency to several ecosystem types.  Third, we must work strategically to control the colonization, establishment, and spread of noxious weed species across all ecosystem types.  High priority restoration projects will range from site-specific spring restoration to landscape-scale forest and grassland restoration initiatives.  As such, a multi-scale approach to adaptive management is necessary.

It is absolutely critical that we work adaptively.  Given dramatic, relatively recent changes in ecosystems across the region, spatial and temporal variability within these ecosystems, and unknown effects of climate change, uncertainty about best management practices is pervasive.  Consequently, we are committed to continually evaluating successes, failures, and lessons learned in a formal, transparent, and scientifically rigorous manner.  By creating and committing to an adaptive management program, we will increase our chances of on-the-ground success, as well as generate models for efficient, scientifically sound adaptive management that can benefit management and restoration projects across the Southwest and beyond.

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Contact: Ethan Aumack: