JFSP_research_product_search

Project ID:

24-2-01-6

Year:

2025

Date Started:

12/16/2024

Date Completed:

Title:

Accelerating Science to Action Partnerships (ASAP): Implementing science-driven adaptation strategies in the 2-3-2 Landscape

Project Proposal Abstract:

Problem Statement: The impacts of unnatural fuel-loading resulting from decades of wildfire suppression, extreme drought, and climate change-driven aridification have made forests and grasslands more vulnerable to insects, pests, disease, and high severity wildfires. Land managers are faced with the challenge of restoring forest resilience while balancing social and environmental constraints. Defensible decision making is only possible with knowledge and resources that inform the right work, in the right places, at the right time and operate within an adaptive management framework. In summary, the problem facing the 2-3-2 Partnership, as well as similar landscapes across the country, is how to craft management strategies that will foster adaptation and achieve the desired conditions.

Objectives: We propose a sciencemanagement partnership that will identify new adaptive management strategies for the 2-3-2 Partnership, a landscape-scale collaborative group that works together to prioritize, plan, implement, and monitor work on nearly 5-million acres in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Working closely with managers, researchers, practitioners, and others in the partnership, we will identify ecosystem vulnerabilities, review existing tools to model future climate, and develop strategies using those tools to respond to future threats in alignment with 2-3-2 Partnership objectives and desired future conditions.

Benefits: The benefits of the project will be both local and national. Locally, developing adaptive cross-boundary strategies will help protect ecological integrity, wildlife populations, water resources, economic opportunities, and communities. Additionally, collaborative processes that build and enhance science-manager partnership will increase implementation readiness and improve shared ownership of management outcomes in the 2-3-2 landscape. Nationally, demonstrating the utility of existing models and tools will help other collaboratives build their own adaptive capacity.

Principal Investigator:

Alexander M. Evans

Agency/Organization:

Forest Guild

Branch or Dept:

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Agreements Contact	Fallon L Grafe	Forest Guild
Budget Contact	Fallon L Grafe	Forest Guild
Co-Principal Investigator	Andrea E. Thode	Northern Arizona University	School of Forestry
Collaborator/Contributor	Blanca B Cespedes	New Mexico Highlands University	Natural Resources Management
Collaborator/Contributor	Jesse D Young	Northern Arizona University	School of Forestry
Collaborator/Contributor	Megan M. Friggens	Forest Service	RMRS-Forestry Sciences Lab-Albuquerque
Collaborator/Contributor	Rachel A. Loehman	USGS-Geological Survey	ASC-Alaska Science Center
Collaborator/Contributor	William T. Flatley	Northern Arizona University	School of Forestry