USDA Forest Service Southwestern Region

Overview  Why Landscapes?  Other Landscape Efforts  Strategic Action Plan Summary  Region-wide Landscape Identification Example  Working with Partners  Next Steps

What’s a Landscape?  A definable area with similar ecological, social and cultural characteristics  Encompass multiple land ownerships  Watersheds are often building blocks  No set acreage limit - must be defined by analysis and working with partners and stakeholders  Large enough to make significant ecological, social, and economic impacts

Why Landscape Conservation? Uncharacteristic Fires throughout the West Need to increase scale to make a difference Secretary’s Vision Restore Forest Landscapes Water Climate Change Sustainable Rural Economies

Other Landscape Efforts  Agency & Conservation Organization Initiatives  Dept. of Interior -Landscape Conservation Cooperatives  BLM-Rapid Ecoregional Assessments  State Assessments (AZ, NM, OK, TX)-State Wildlife Action Plans; State Forest Resources Assessment and Strategy  R3 Forests (present and future)  CFLRA projects (Four Forest Restoration Initiative; Southwest Jemez)  Watershed Condition Framework: Forest-wide watershed condition assessments, Priority Watershed and Jobs Stabilization  ILAP (Integrated Landscape Assessment Project): R3 & PNW

USDI-Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

BLM Rapid Ecoregional Assessments

Strategic Action Plan Summary

Goal  Conserve and restore landscapes improve resilience, sustainability, and diversity of these systems by:  Identifying and prioritizing landscapes.  Developing the resources, partnerships, and tools needed.  Developing a concise set of performance metrics.

Guiding Principles  A Landscape Framework  Relationship Between Forest Plans and Landscape Work  Forests Identify and Characterize Landscapes  Forests Prioritize Landscapes  Balancing Landscape Work and Stewardship Responsibilities  Funding

Objectives & Performance Measures  Identify and Prioritize Landscapes  Plan  Implement  Monitor  Develop 1 or 2 performance measures for each objective

Identify and Prioritize Landscapes  Each forest will prioritize their identified landscapes  values placed on the landscape  threats to those values  degree of collaboration and local support to restore the landscape  Economics

Strategies  Describe how the Region will support forests and grasslands in planning, implementing and monitoring landscape work. 1. Build Internal and External Understanding and Trust 2. Build Internal Capacity 3. Expand Partnerships 4. Support Sustainable Restoration-Based Economies

Regional Landscape Identification Example

Values at Risk and Stressors-Threats

Four themes for analyzing landscapes  Region-wide: fourth code HUC’s; sub-basins  Characterize landscapes based on 4 themes:  Fire Regime and Condition Class (FRCC)  Municipal Watersheds-Source Water Supply  Wildland Urban Interface (WUI)  Species of Greatest Conservation Need (species richness)

Map Generation  Map demonstrates the process of identifying broad landscapes and establishing the values at risks  Broad-scale Analysis  The analysis unit was 4 th code watersheds  Forests will use finer scale data sets and stakeholders to identify and prioritize landscapes

Methodology Overview  Four Themes  Assembling and Prepare Data Layers  Reclassification  Weighted Overlay  Aggregation to Watersheds

Weighted Overlay  This is a subjective process– The data layers were weighted by the landscape workgroup by discussing the relative importance of the 4 themes. ThemeWeight Fire Regime Condition Class 48% Source Watershed24% WUI16% Species Richness (New Mexico) 12%

Aggregation  Weighted overlay was aggregated to 4 th level HUCs.  The relative ranking of the aggregated HUCs is based on the proportion (percent) of the watershed with high scores.

Working with Partners  Many partners are thinking about landscapes  How do we start bringing those efforts together?  Communicate how we’re thinking about landscapes  Greater ecosystem benefits across all lands  Align our work and leverage resources  This can’t happen without all of us working together

Next Steps  Forests will be identifying and prioritizing landscapes  Presentations at other partner meetings  Convene Regional Steering Committee  Convene partners to coordinate landscape priorities  Communicating & engaging public about smoke as it relates to landscape conservation and restoration  Explore potential for private infrastructure to support landscape restoration  Assessment of data/information resource capacity to support landscape conservation and restoration