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Removing conifers from an aspen stand creates defensible space in a
wildland-residential interface
© Tyler Rennfield |
A coalition of private and public land managers in southwest Montana's Centennial Valley initiated a landscape-scale fire restoration program in 2006. The project is the first of its kind in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
The Centennial FLN has been investing much of its effort in three areas: identifying common priorities for fire restoration, implementing demonstration treatments with monitoring to document the results and sharing the
lessons learned through workshops and site tours. The coalition expects that lessons learned in the Centennial Valley will facilitate and accelerate similar efforts throughout southwest Montana and eastern Idaho.
Project Vision
The network facilitates restoration of native habitats at ecologically meaningful scales through communication with partners and the public and clear demonstrations of restoration action at representative sites. We work to restore those habitat types and elements that have declined most significantly over the past century: aspen wood-lands, old-growth Douglas-fir forests and west-slope cutthroat trout. We see community protection zones as a prerequisite for incorporating fire as a broad-scale
functioning natural process that is
accepted in these landscapes.
Background
The long-term
viability of several ecological systems in the region depends upon ecologically appropriate fire. As in most of the West, a century of fire exclusion and altered fire regimes has substantially changed these ecosystems, threatening the viability of a number of species as well as the systems themselves.
A central fire restoration issue across this landscape is aspen conservation. Aspen ecology is complex: herbivory by wildlife (and so, predators and hunting), hydrology, drought and disease all play a role. Previous tools for implementing aspen restoration at meaningful scales have proven difficult, and some have even been counter-productive. Effective solutions will require collaboration among wildlife managers, habitat biologists and the public—the FLN approach has thus been recognized as ideal for addressing the challenges in these landscapes.
Demonstration Landscape
Participating Landscapes
Leader: Nathan Korb
Resources
Sandhills Burn Monitoring Site Visit/ Centennial Valley, MT / 22 September 2009
Partners met at the site of a 2008 ecological burn to observce the site, review the before and after monitoring data and plan the next steps in management and monitoring.
Downloads
Northern Rockies Aspen Conference/ Missoula, MT / 3-4 April 2009
The FLN is co-sponsoring this workshop on aspen silvics and ecology, covering topics that will include case studies in management options and collaborating to implement management. Abstracts are being accepted for the poster session. See the flyer for details and contact information.
Downloads
Douglas Fir Management Workshop / 13 June 2008
The meeting was originally scheduled for Fall 2007. The objectives of this meeting were to:
(1) foster in-depth, proactive communication about forest and fire management among
Centennial Valley stakeholders;
(2) explore benefits and impacts of various forest management strategies from an
interdisciplinary perspective; and
3) develop a list, however short, of commonly agreed upon recommendations and
guidelines for management of low-elevation Douglas-fir forests in this biologically
diverse region.
Downloads
Aspen Ecology and Restoration Workshop / West Yellowstone, MT
21-22 September 2006
The objectives of this meeting were to:
(1) define restoration needs and develop ecological goals for aspen in the Centennial Valley and surrounding areas of southwest Montana;
(2) review ongoing restoration projects and synthesize lessons learned;
(3) develop key points for an adaptive conservation plan including range of acceptable prescriptions for aspen, information gaps, and strategies; and
(4) identify common priorities for aspen restoration and discuss how to move them forward most effectively.
Downloads
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