Photo: Jarbidge, NV (C. Carroon)
As climates rapidly change, plant and animal species must adapt in place or move to track the conditions they need. To prevent extinction, landscapes need to be permeable to that dispersal, with public and private lands connected into a regional network of habitat and lads maintained in good ecological condition. Invasive species, altered fire regimes, habitat fragmentation, overdraft of water and other anthropogenic factors have set vast landscapes into steep decline. Consequences can not only be catastrophic for native species; they can also bring signficiant economic, social, and cultural hardship and loss to human communities.
The Nevada Resilient Lands Initiative is working to protect, restore and manage a newtork of conservation-compatible public and private lands that will support biodiversity and adaptation while securing the continued provisioning of co-benefits for people. Our work includes:
- Resilient public lands
- Energy, infrastructure and land use
- Carbon sequestration in rangelands: Provencher et al. (2023) found that seeding degraded sagebrush rangelands with perennial grasses and shrubs can achieve multiple goals of benefitting wildlife, ranching and fire management while also storing carbon that represents 58-90 percent of all ecosystem carbon. See here for a 2-page fact sheet and here for the full paper.
