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Social Media in Conservation: A Good Thing, Maybe
By Megan McGrath – IWJV Sagebrush Communications Specialist When you work in conservation, social media can honestly seem a little silly. In our jobs and in our personal interests, we talk all day with people who supervise ecological indicators like the health of plants and streams. In an increasingly digital age, we are blessedly immersed…
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What Brings Us Together: Five Lessons from the Range
Field Notes What Brings Us Together: Five Lessons from the Range By Brenda Richards, Idaho Rangeland Conservation Partnership Coordinator Conserving and restoring healthy rangelands is a community-scale effort that depends on people in many roles, from restoration crews and wildland firefighters to land managers, permit specialists, agency staff, and landowners. One of the most vital—and…
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At the Woodland’s Edge: Restoration and Complexity in Colorado’s Piceance Basin
At the Woodland’s Edge:Restoration and Complexity in Colorado’s Piceance Basin Between two ecosystems, a conservation partnership maintains balance for deer, birds, fire, and people By Megan McGrath – Intermountain West Joint VenturePhotos by Mariah McIntosh On a chilly April morning in the Piceance Basin region of northwest Colorado, two young women stand on an overlook…
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BLM and IWJV Workshop Woodland Management in Colorado
In early April, staff from the Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV) hosted workshops in western Colorado with Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staff focused on balancing management objectives in pinyon-juniper woodlands. Back-to-back workshops in Meeker, Montrose, and Grand Junction brought together fuels, wildlife, and other resource staff grappling with management challenges of habitat management and…
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On the Arizona Strip, Now is the Time for Fire and Fuels Work
When it comes to the desert southwest, the Arizona Strip is entirely its own place. Everything north of the Grand Canyon (or “the Big Ditch,” as locals call it) and south of Utah, including 3.1 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land, is geographically isolated, sparsely populated, and culturally unique. It doesn’t totally identify…
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IWJV Featured in “On the Ground” Podcast
The IWJV’s Partnering to Conserve Sagebrush Rangelands is featured in a new episode of the Bureau of Bureau of Land Management’s podcast, On the Ground. Listen here!: The episode interviews Grace Hershberg and Ethan Kalinowski. These two members of the IWJV’s Sage Capacity Team are stationed in different corners of Montana to facilitate ecological restoration…
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Finding Balance with Fire in Montana’s Sagebrush Country
Low-intensity fire has kept ecosystems in southwest Montana in balance for thousands of years. The Southwest Montana Sagebrush Partnership is working to maintain that balance. ✦ ✦ ✦ In June, the spider web of mountains and valleys that traverse Beaverhead County in southwest Montana are in a full bloom of wildflowers. In this high, cold…
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Horizon to Horizon: Improving Habitat at a Landscape Scale
The Bruneau-Owyhee Sage-grouse Habitat (BOSH) Project is a large conservation effort designed to improve and maintain sagebrush habitat by removing encroaching juniper to benefit the Greater Sage-grouse and other wildlife. Land managers from across the sagebrush sea are working in the BOSH area to better understand how conservation practices impact wildlife, vegetation, and livelihoods across…
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A Southwest Success Story at Watershed Scale
If a person were to park on the border of Arizona and Nevada, step out of their vehicle, and start walking east across the Bureau of Land Management’s Arizona Strip District, it would be many days, perhaps even weeks, before they reached the other side. The scale of the landscape is nearly incomprehensible. There is…
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On the Arizona Strip with IWJV’s Sage Capacity Team
Perhaps no partnership of field-based individuals has had the breadth of impacts on the sagebrush biome as IWJV’s Sage Capacity Team (SCT). During the week of May 16th, the SCT convened in St. George, Utah, and after more than two years of virtual meetings many SCT members were meeting in person for the first time.…
