Life Sciences Commons^™

Estimating Expected Fire Suppression Cost Savings Due To Vegetation Management On Pinyon Pine And Juniper Invaded Sagebrush Rangelands, Kimberly Rollins, Mimako (Mimi) Kobayashi

Reports

Wildfire suppression costs in the United States have increased steadily over the last decades (Stephens and Ruth 2005, Calkin et al. 2005, Gebert et al 2007, Westerling et al. 2006, GAO 2007), with related expenditures by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management exceeding a billion dollars per year in four out of the seven years leading up to 2006 (Gebert et al 2008). Pre-­fire vegetation management on public lands is recognized as an important tool for reducing expected wildfire suppression costs (GAO 2007).Using data from wildfire suppression costs across the US, Lankoande and Yoder (2006) estimate that …

The Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (Sagestep): A Test Of State-And-Transition Theory, James Mciver, Mark W. Brunson, Steve Bunting, Jeanne C. Chambers, Nora Devoe, Paul Doescher, James Grace, Dale Johnson, Steve Knick, Richard F. Miller, Mike Pellant, Fred Pierson, David Pyke, Kim Rollins, Bruce Roundy, Eugene W. Schupp, Robin Tausch, David Turner

Reports

The Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) is a comprehensive, integrated, long-term study that evaluates the ecological effects of fire and fire surrogate treatments designed to reduce fuel and to restore sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) communities of the Great Basin and surrounding areas. SageSTEP has several features that make it ideal for testing hypotheses from state-and-transition theory: it is long-term, experimental, multisite, and multivariate, and treatments are applied across condition gradients, allowing for potential identification of biotic thresholds. The project will determine the conditions under which sagebrush steppe ecological communities recover on their own following fuel treatment versus the communities crossing …

Willingness To Pay Estimation When Protest Beliefs Are Not Separable From The Public Good Definition, Kimberly Rollins, M.D.R. Evans, Mimako Kobayashi, Anita Castledine

Reports

Public good attributes that are correlated with protest beliefs but not separable from the good's value, would affect stated preference estimates of the WTP for the public good. Survey data collected to value a program to prevent ecosystem losses on Nevada rangelands, where the majority of land is publicly owned and managed, reveal more than half of the respondents exhibiting some protest belief. Of these, about 60% voted 'yes' to some nonzero bid amount. By treating protest beliefs and opposition to the proposed program as separate concepts, we systematically analyze their determinants and impacts on WTP. In this framework, people …

Guide To Stakeholder Groups For Great Basin Sagebrush Steppe Restoration, Scott Hoffmann, Mark W. Brunson, Summer Olsen

Reports

This guide is intended to provide information on active stakeholder interest groups focused on restoration of sagebrush ecosystems in the Great Basin region. It is based on a comprehensive search of internet websites, recently filed litigation records, previous interviews, and discussions with land managers in the region. The information contained in the guide is representative of the general environment in which restoration activities are conducted in the six states comprising the SageSTEP project, and is not meant to be an all-inclusive listing of groups. All efforts were made to identify groups most active and thus most pertinent to land managers …

Pocket Guide To Sagebrush Birds, Melissa Pitkin, Laura Quattrini

Reports

This guide was written for anyone interested in learning about the most common bird species in sagebrush habitats, and it contains some general information about what people can do to help them survive. We focus on 40 of the most common species and organize them according to their relationships to each other. For example, hawks are grouped together, sparrows are grouped together, et cetera.

In the first few pages of the guide we present descriptions of some of the main types of plant communities found within the sagebrush region of the Intermountain West (the area of North America stretching from …