-
·
Field Notes: What We Can Learn from Working Dogs
By Elizabeth Friedl, ACEP-ALE Easement Specialist, California Easement Team, USDA-NRCS Elizabeth Friedl, a field-based capacity position supported by the IWJV, plays a unique role in the conservation of farm and ranch lands in California. Her work bridges gaps between the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), land trusts, and private landowners to build connections and streamline…
-
·
Five Interesting Ways to Use Virtual Fences
By Janyne Little Managing cattle across vast rangelands has long been a complex challenge for ranchers and land managers. Conventional barbed wire fencing methods, while effective, can be costly, labor-intensive, and inflexible to operational and environmental changes. Virtual fencing technology has the potential to provide a more precise, adaptable, and cost-effective tool for livestock management.…
-
·
Video: Sustaining Wetlands & Watersheds with Flood-Irrigated Grass Hay
Riparian corridors are lifelines for the wildlife and communities of the Intermountain West. These corridors are home to many of the region’s wetlands and are sustained by seasonal water cycles. This means that the wildlife that depends on wetlands, from migratory waterbirds to big game animals, can often be found using riparian areas. Much of…
-
·
Planning for the Future on the Laramie Plains
Updating infrastructure to protect water & wetlands In winter, the Hart Ranch is still. What water there is on the land, both here and across the Laramie Plains, is frozen. Bone-bare cottonwoods and the gnarled branches of shrubs line empty ditches and the Laramie River’s floodplain. The ground is tawny and fallow between the snow…
-
·
Annual Operational Plan
Annual operational plan The Intermountain West Joint Venture’s Annual Operational Plan establishes the priorities, activities, and budget for the current federal fiscal year. This operational plan focuses our team on efforts that help us realize the highest possible return on investment as we support habitat conservation through partnerships across 486 million acres of the West.
-
·
Field Notes
In this series of first-person essays, we are sharing stories from wildly different “fields” traveled by the conservation community. Scroll to view this storymap, or see it full size here. Field Notes is a compilation of first-person essays composed across many years by the Intermountain West Joint Venture partners, board members, and staff. Our professional…
-
·
Bringing Conservation Communicators Together Through the Storyteller’s Circle
In October 2024, the IWJV, the Center for Collaborative Conservation, and Audubon Rockies offered conservation communicators an opportunity for place-based professional development and networking. A three-day workshop at Wyoming’s Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge focused on effective storytelling around habitat conservation efforts (in this case, sagebrush rangelands) by providing continued learning through topic-based sessions and guest…
-
·
The IWJV Celebrates the Power of Partnerships
The IWJV’s organizational philosophy can simply be described as a deep recognition that people are fundamental to the story of conservation in the West. As a partnership-fueled entity, metrics of success cannot always be shown qualitatively, but the impacts of the work are still incredibly meaningful. We took that concept to heart by soliciting narrations…
-
·
High But Not Dry
An article in Western Confluence magazine explores the places where flood irrigation might be doing more good than harm. Every spring, Chris Williams looks forward to seeing the terns alight on the meadows of the southern Wyoming ranch that he manages. It’s a fleeting sight—the birds are there for one day and then they’re gone, off…
-
·
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…
