Treesearch

(Please note, this is an abstract only) This paper is for folks involved in community development efforts targeted towards biomass utilization. Our approach to evaluate the potential for establishing enterprises that utilize locally available forest resources is tailored specifically to the needs of the local community. We evaluate the: 1. Technical feasibility and economic viability of the bio-energy and/or wood products manufacturing enterprise. 2. Social responsibility of establishing the enterprise in the local community.

Since European settlement, Utah?s vegetative landscapes have changed. Like other arid states, these wildland systems were depleted and altered. Certain steps were taken through private, community, and finally public efforts, such as establishment of Forest Reserves (National Forests), to stop the slide. Conservation and management actions were taken to restore, rehabilitate and manage these landscapes. Utah has numerous examples where the productive capability of the land has been restored. Unfortunately, in this environmental era, we are again in a downward ecological spiral, and the...

Description: New Mexico State University's Corona Range and Livestock Research Center (CRLRC) is located in a pinon-juniper (PJ)/grassland ecotone in the southern Basin and Range Province in south central New Mexico. A number of research projects conducted at this facility revolve around soil, plant, livestock, and wildlife responses to PJ woodland management. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of on-going research at CRLRC dealing with sustainable management of PJ ecosystems. This paper is divided into 2 sections; the first deals with mature PJ woodland management...

The Population Health Model (PHM) (Hamilton and Bhatti 1996) brings much needed attention to the critical role of environmental and community variables in the promotion of physical and mental health. However, it appears to neglect two facets integral to what is otherwise a rich contextual approach to health promotion. One facet, place, is the binding theme of this book and will be addressed accordingly. The other facet, leisure (and in particular nature-based recreation and tourism), is the specific substantive focus of this chapter. Few would seriously dispute that the quality of the...

Researchers continue to explore the nature of place meanings and especially how these meanings are created, disseminated and contested. This paper uses the conceptual framework of discursive social psychology to identify varying interpretive frames homeowners use to characterize the meaning and significance of their seasonal homes as vacation and recreation residences. Among the frames are refuge from modern life, the importance or centrality of seasonal homes in people's lives, obligations and burdens entailed by maintaining dual residences and interactions within a community. The paper...

Invasion biology has focused on the direct effects of plant invasion and has generally overlooked indirect interactions. Here we link theories of invasion biology and herbivory to explore an indirect effect of one invading species on associational herbivory (the effect of neighboring plants on herbivory) of native species. We studied a Great Basin shadscale (Atriplex confertifolia)-bunchgrass community in western Utah, U.S.A. This community is dominated by native bunchgrasses, invaded by cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), and home to large populations of grasshoppers (Xanthippus corallipes and...

Over the past several decades, cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) has been continually expanding in the sagebrush steppe ecosystem. There has been very little research that examines why cheatgrass is able to invade these communities. To determine the effects of herbaceous vegetation removal and fire on available water for cheatgrass invasion, as well as effects of cheatgrass itself, we measured spring soil moisture and vegetation cover on nine sites in Nevada and Utah. Total time of soil water availability was calculated for 1 April through 30 June in 2002 and 2003 on plots that were left...

Habitat managers can better prepare a program for prescribed burns, wildfire management, and maximum forage biomass by understanding the response of key shrubs to the tools utilized to reduce cheatgrass (Bromus spp.) competition. Application of Plateau® herbicide, prior to annual brome germination, at rates up to 8 oz/acre with or without surfactant gave acceptable annual brome reduction without adverse injury to true mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus montanus), antelope bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata.), and sagebrush (Artemisia spp.). By removing cheatgrass prior to or after a burn, shrub...

The interagency-Fire Regime / Condition Class - assessment process (FRCC) represents a contemporary and effective means of estimating the relative degree of difference or "departure" a subject landscape condition is currently in, as compared to the historic or reference ecological conditions. This process generally applied to fire adapted systems is science-based and adaptive as are the very ecosystems that are being studied. FRCC is also approachable and understandable by citizens participating in an interdisciplinary approach to assessing current ecological conditions.

(Please note, this is an abstract only) We modeled crown fire behavior and assessed changes in canopy fuels before and after the implementation of restoration treatments in a ponderosa pine landscape at Mt. Trumbull, Arizona. We measured 117 permanent plots before (1996/1997) and after (2003) thinning and burning treatments. The plots are evenly distributed across the landscape and represent an area of approximately 1,200 ha (2,964 ac), about half of which is an untreated control. Basal area decreased significantly by 42% from 32.6 m2 (142.0 ft2) to 18.9 m2 (82.3 ft2) in the treated area...