Green River Basin Landscape Conservation

Introduction

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The Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design (GRB LCD) Project is a multi-stakeholder collaborative effort to create tools to identify spatially-explicit conservation opportunities for the Green River Basin. By merging diverse objectives, perspectives and experiences, the GRB LCD brings together regional stakeholders to identify common management objectives and conservation concerns and targets. The effort is designed to identify shared natural resource values in the context of increasing stressors to coupled human-natural systems, and to explore management opportunities based on areas of vulnerability and resilience, and existing priorities of partner organizations.  

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) are self-directed, non-regulatory regional partnerships that bring together federal, state, and local governments along with Tribal and First Nations, non-government organizations, universities, and private organizations to collaborate across ecoregions to address landscape-scale challenges. LCCs support Landscape Conservation Designs as mechanisms for identifying resources, areas of concern, stressors, and environmental processes across an entire landscape.

The Green River Basin extends over 48,667 square miles and covers large portions of southwestern Wyoming, northeastern Utah, and northwestern Colorado and was identified as a priority by the Southern Rockies LCC Steering Committee. This predominantly high desert region supports a multitude of species of management concern such as; the Greater Sage Grouse, Pronghorn, Burrowing Owl, Mule Deer, Pygmy Rabbit, Colorado River Cutthroat Trout, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Humpback Chub, and a variety of other raptors and warm-water fish.

The GRB LCD process identified sagebrush sagebrush
The western United States’ sagebrush country encompasses over 175 million acres of public and private lands. The sagebrush landscape provides many benefits to our rural economies and communities, and it serves as crucial habitat for a diversity of wildlife, including the iconic greater sage-grouse and over 350 other species.

Learn more about sagebrush steppe and riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian /aquatic habitat as key resources for focus within the Green River Basin. Conservation concerns include land use changes such as energy development, along with stressors associated with climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change . The LCD process involved mapping each focal resource through a vulnerability framework, and exploring what conservation efforts were happening or could be implemented in areas of vulnerability and resilience, depending on the group’s management goals.

Key Issues Addressed

Natural resource managers face growing landscape-scale challenges such as climatic and land use changes that cross landscape boundaries. In order to address challenges and leverage limited resources, it is necessary for managers to collaborate and work outside and across jurisdictions. While managers operate under different missions and mandates, they often face similar challenges such as limited financial and human resources. Landscape-scale decision tools, such as maps and models, can help guide the decision-making process by prioritizing the most important needs and where to direct limited resources. Building tools through the Landscape Conservation Design (LCD) process allows stakeholders to identify opportunities to act and to define common goals.

Project Goals

• Identify key conservation targets for resource management
• Identify existing conservation efforts
• Collaborate with partners on data analysis
• Deliver data and maps to develop and coordinate future multi-scale action plans
• Promote and increase effective conservation strategies across multiple jurisdictions

Project Highlights

Common Ground: The LCD can complement existing work and leverage resources into effective conservation through partnerships, collaboration to pursue and leverage funding, and information-sharing among partners. 

• Conservation Opportunity Areas: The project used an analytical framework that spatially identified areas of vulnerability in the basin, and identified conservation action opportunities based on organizations’ and collaborative’s existing priorities and gaps.
• A Participant-Driven Process:A series of needs assessment interviews, in-person workshops, webinars, and numerous technical meetings engaged state wildlife agencies, federal agencies, land trusts, joint ventures, tribes, counties, conservation NGOs, researchers, and others in a participatory analysis that blended science, shared priorities, and practical actions.
• Spatial Products: Maps of vulnerability and resilience were created to identify common areas of management concern. Assessments were conducted for vulnerability of: Riparian Habitat to Land Uses; Critical Fish Habitat to Oil and Gas Development; Colorado River Cutthroat Trout Habitat to Climate Change; Sagebrush Ecosystem to Oil and Gas Development; Sagebrush Ecosystem Permeability to Human Modification; and Sagebrush Ecosystem to Climate Change.

Lessons Learned

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• Networking and in-person relationship-building were recognized as important elements for the project, and multiple communication methods were proposed. It was also suggested that communications be maintained by an organization or an existing collaborative within the Green River Basin.
• Numerous data needs were identified and included: addressing cultural resources, accurate floodplain maps, grazing maps, invasive species invasive species
  An invasive species is any plant or animal that has spread or been introduced into a new area where they are, or could, cause harm to the environment, economy, or human, animal, or plant health. Their unwelcome presence can destroy ecosystems and cost millions of dollars.
  
  Learn more about invasive species maps (especially tamarisk and cheatgrass), data in pinyon-juniper habitat, and fire as a stressor. The next step would be to prioritize these and other data needs.
• There was an attempt to close data gaps but some data gaps were not feasible to meet, or beyond the project’s scope. In particular, a knowledge gap was identified based around conservation actions. Currently there are several conservation actions repositories that exist, but are not openly available in a spatially explicit format across the basin. A systematic way of sharing information is needed to address this shortcoming. 

Next Steps

• Continue to build ownership of spatial data products
• Use information from the LCD to support opportunities for collaboration and conservation action
• Advance inter-organizational opportunities for information sharing and partnerships to broaden vulnerability assessments and evaluate areas for potential new conservation actions, or leverage or expand current efforts

Partners

• Audubon Society
• BLM, Colorado State Office
• BLM, Pinedale Field Office
• BLM, Utah State Office
• BLM, Vernal Field Office
• BLM, Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative
• BLM, Wyoming State Office
• Bureau of Indian Affairs, Uintah and Ouray Agency
• Coalition of Local Government
• Colorado Department of Natural Resources
• Colorado Parks and Wildlife
• Colorado State University
• Mule Deer Foundation
• National Interagency Fire Center
• National Park Service, Dinosaur National Monument
• National Park Service, Intermountain Region
• National Park Service: Division of Water Resources
• National Park Service: Fossil Butte National Monument
• National Park Service: Northern Colorado Inventory and Monitoring Program
• Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory
• Sweetwater County
• Sweetwater County Conservation District
• Tamarisk Coalition
• The Nature Conservancy
• Trout Unlimited
• US BOR, Flaming Gorge Dam
• USFS, Ashley National Forest
• USFS, Rocky Mountain Research Station
• USFWS Intermountain Joint Venture
• USFWS Lower Green River NWR Complex
• USFWS Upper Colorado River Recovery Program
• USFWS, Branch of Conservation Planning and Policy
• USFWS, Mountain-Prairie Region
• USFWS, Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative
• USFWS, Wyoming Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program
• USFWS: Seedskadee and Cokeville NWRs
• USFWS, Vernal Colorado River Fishery Project
• USGS Ft. Collins Science Center
• USGS, North Central Climate Science Center
• USGS, Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative
• Utah Department of Natural Resources
• Utah Game and Fish
• Utah Mitigation and Reclamation Commission
• Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office
• Utah State University
• Western Native Trout Initiative
• Western States Water Council
• Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative
• Wyoming Game and Fish Department

Funding Partner

• Landscape Conservation Cooperative Network 

Resources

• Needs Assessment Report for the Green River Basin LCD
• Green River Basin LCD Collaborative website
• Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design Data Basin
• Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design ScienceBase Catalog

Contacts

• Sasha Stortz, Senior Research Specialist, Northern Arizona University Landscape Conservation Institute, Sasha.Stortz@nau.edu
• Dave Theobald, Conservation Science Partners davet@csp-inc.org

Case Study Lead Author

• Deanna Morrell, Program Analyst, US Bureau of Reclamation

Suggested Citation

Morrell, D. P. (2018). “Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design Project.” CART. Retrieved from https://www.fws.gov/project/green-river-basin-landscape-conservation.