Project Details

The Boulder Mountain area, including the Fremont River and Escalante Ranger Districts of US Forest Service (USFS), is considered a top state priority focal conservation area by WRI and The Nature Conservancy. A concern of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is the decline of the local mule deer population, perhaps caused by the degrading condition of aspen stands. WRI and The Nature Conservancy want to take advantage of USFS proposed NEPA planning at the Fremont River Ranger District (Fishlake National Forest), and anticipated NEPA planning at the Escalante Ranger District (Dixie National Forest), to map vegetation with high resolution and accuracy, and to identify with quantitative models the most feasible of several alternative management scenarios that will achieve the greatest conservation outcomes, including the reversal of the current mule deer population decline on Boulder Mountain. 
Landscape Conservation Forecasting, used by The Nature Conservancy in several USFS, BLM, and NPS projects in Utah and Nevada (Low et al. 2010; Provencher et al. 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016a&b, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021b; Tuhy et al. 2010a&b, 2014), will be used to map vegetation at high spatial resolution and compare the ecological benefits of USFS NEPA alternative scenarios in FY2022-2023

Provide evidence about the nature of the problem and the need to address it. Identify the significance of the problem using a variety of data sources. For example, if a habitat restoration project is being proposed to benefit greater sage-grouse, describe the existing plant community characteristics that limit habitat value for greater sage-grouse and identify the changes needed for habitat improvement.

Eight major objectives will be completed by June 30, 2022:
a)	Upload new remote-sensed rasters of ecological systems, vegetation classes, land ownership (USFS, private, state, others) into ST-Sim simulation software after translation of field codes to model nomenclature and quality control. Due date July 30, 2022;
b)	Upload to ST-Sim remaining spatial control rasters for livestock grazing supplied by USFS. Due date September 30, 2022 or pending USFS delivery;
c)	Run "custodial" (i.e., do-nothing proposed action alternative) spatial simulations for at most 35 years. Due date September 30, 2022;
d)	Conduct first partner management workshop to (no later than October 30, 2022):
a.	Review vegetation maps
b.	Introduction to Landscape Conservation Forecasting
c.	Set general management objectives
d.	Review draft custodial scenario assumptions and results
e.	Define USFS proposed action alternatives by district and duration of simulations
f.	Define probable time-varying annual budgets for proposed alternatives for duration of simulation
g.	Define focal systems receiving proposed actions, most likely treatments actions used (e.g., Rx Fire), cost per acre, success/failure rates and outcomes of proposed actions
h.	Time allowing, review results of "straw-person" management scenario
i.	Next steps;
e)	Run draft proposed alternative management scenarios. Due date: March 7th, 2023; 
f)	Conduct second partner management workshop to (no later than March 15, 2023):
a.	Review past steps
b.	Review results and revise treatment implementation rates of draft proposed management alternatives
c.	Next steps;
g)	Run final version of proposed alternative management scenarios and analyze. Due data: May 1st, 2023;
h)	Write final report. Due date: June 30th, 2023.

Provide an overall goal for the project and then provide clear, specific and measurable objectives (outcomes) to be accomplished by the proposed actions. If possible, tie to one or more of the public benefits UWRI is providing.

Risks to UDWR
-	Not getting sin time spatial constraint rasters for cattle and sheep grazing from USFS; allotment and pastures, species of use, season of use, stock water locations, AUMs or # heads of livestock by allotment/pasture, year of grazing/rest  
-	Selecting too many focal managed ecological systems of the 38 mapped
-	Retaining too many similar USFS proposed alternative management scenarios balancing timber and range management
-	Conflicts about sources of herbivory that degrade mule deer habitat and aspen systems that can hinder modeling efficiency
-	Inability to propose a solution to recover mule deer population without a mule deer habitat suitability model
Risks to WRI
-	Difficulty facilitating coordination between US Forest Service, UDWR, and livestock operators
-	Description of ecological systems and vegetation map and models will not meet expectations of USFS for timber, northern goshawk, and at-risk species management and prevent defensible project submission to WRI
-	Satisfactory state-and-transition simulation models will not be applicable to USFS's NEPA assessment and help mitigate the decline of the mule deer population

Risks to USFS
-	Ecological systems and vegetation classes will not reflect management needs for timber harvest and at-risk species, and lead to unsatisfactory NEPA planning
-	Description of conifer systems and vegetation classes could be used for potential litigation by groups that oppose timber extraction, even for at-risk species management
-	USFS proposed action alternatives will not translate well to state-and-transition simulation modeling and not be useful for NEPA documentation.

LOCATION: Justify the proposed location of this project over other areas, include publicly scrutinized planning/recovery documents that list this area as a priority, remote sensing modeling that show this area is a good candidate for restoration, wildlife migration information and other data that help justify this project's location.

TIMING: Justify why this project should be implemented at this time. For example, Is the project area at risk of crossing an ecological or other threshold wherein future restoration would become more difficult, cost prohibitive, or even impossible.

List management plans where this project will address an objective or strategy in the plan. Describe how the project area overlaps the objective or strategy in the plan and the relevance of the project to the successful implementation of those plans. It is best to provide this information in a list format with the description immediately following the plan objective or strategy.

If applicable, detail how the proposed project will significantly reduce the risk of fuel loading and/or continuity of hazardous fuels including the use of fire-wise species in re-seeding operations. Describe the value of any features being protected by reducing the risk of fire. Values may include; communities at risk, permanent infrastructure, municipal watersheds, campgrounds, critical wildlife habitat, etc. Include the size of the area where fuels are being reduced and the distance from the feature(s) at risk.

Describe how the project has the potential to improve water quality and/or increase water quantity, both over the short and long term. Address run-off, erosion, soil infiltration, and flooding, if applicable.

Description of efforts, both completed and planned, to bring the proposed action into compliance with any and all cultural resource, NEPA, ESA, etc. requirements. If compliance is not required enter "not applicable" and explain why not it is not required.

a)	New ecological systems and vegetation class map layered delivered by contractor Spatial Solutions Inc by June 30th, 2022 to TNC, UDWR, and USFS will be a) translated from short-hand field codes to ST-Sim (simulation software) model codes (names and 8-digit numbers); b) quality controlled during the translation process with additional verification of suspicious vegetation assignments, if needed; and c) resample from Spot 6/7 native satellite resolution of 1.5m to either 25m or 30m resolution using TNC's Python script to resample while retaining small patch systems and vegetation classes valuable to wildlife species. Resampling is needed stay within hardware and software memory limitations. The resample map layers and the land ownership map resampled at the same scale of 25 or 30-m will be directly uploaded into ST-Sim; 
b)	To conduct simulations fully representing the desired complexity of livestock grazing, USFS will be suppling shape files that TNC will convert to rasters to be uploaded into ST-Sim. TNC's experience with such grazing refinements is that they take time to assemble and translate into something useful for modeling. While the request for this information was requested in Year #1, TNC fully expect to receive some shape files after July 1st, 2022. Uploading and creating a reasonable grazing submodel in ST-Sim is time consuming and will be approached as a partitioning of total AUMs or heads of livestock using ST-Sim Target Attributes menu. In addition to grazing rasters, all other spatial constraints raster not added to the model in Year 1 will be incorporated such as Digital Elevation Models, fire ignition rasters, sensitive species protection zones, no management zones, and so on.   
c)	After assembly of the ST-Sim database, TNC will spatially run 20 climate-based replicates of the "custodial" (i.e., do-nothing proposed action alternative) scenario for 35 years at most. 
d)	The first partner management workshop will hopefully be conducted in either Escalante or Loa/Torrey area depending on the choice of partners. TNC management, mapping, GIS, and modeling staff will organize and lead/moderate the meeting where agency line officers and specialists are needed and other stakeholders welcome up to a maximum of 25 participants. The workshop covers much needed information and concepts, some difficult, and will require 2.5 continuous days. 
e)	Using workshop data and prescription of management scenarios, TNC staff will populate the treatment implementation menu of ST-Sim and run all draft scenarios using only 10 replicates (20 replicates might be used for final report results).  
f)	The second partner management workshop will hopefully be conducted in another location not selected for the first workshop (Escalante or Loa/Torrey area). TNC management, mapping, GIS, and modeling staff will organize and lead/moderate the meeting where agency line officers and specialists are needed and other stakeholders welcome up to a maximum of 25 participants. The primary and most time-consuming objective is to review draft results from scenarios and revise treatment implementation rates, if needed. 
g)	Using the revised treatment rates of each proposed management alternative, TNC will run the final version of proposed alternative management scenarios while respecting budget limitations, and analyze vegetation results using the Unified Ecological Departure metric (Provencher et al. 2021a) and ecological return-on-investment (Low et al 2010, Provencher et al. 2013).
h)	TNC will write a final report using the same template  submitted to WRI for project WRI #4823 (introduction, methods, system by system result analysis with annual treatment prescriptions, and maps of treatment implementation).

Describe the actions, activities, tasks to be implemented as part of the proposed project; how these activities will be carried out, equipment to be used, when, and by whom.

Describe plans to monitor for project success and achievement of stated objectives. Include details on type of monitoring (vegetation, wildlife, etc.), schedule, assignments and how the results of these monitoring efforts will be reported and/or uploaded to this project page. If needed, upload detailed plans in the "attachments" section.

List any and all partners (agencies, organizations, NGO's, private landowners) that support the proposal and/or have been contacted and included in the planning and design of the proposed project. Describe efforts to gather input and include these agencies, landowners, permitees, sportsman groups, researchers, etc. that may be interested/affected by the proposed project. Partners do not have to provide funding or in-kind services to a project to be listed.

Detail future methods or techniques (including administrative actions) that will be implemented to help in accomplishing the stated objectives and to insure the long term success/stability of the proposed project. This may include: post-treatment grazing rest and/or management plans/changes, wildlife herd/species management plan changes, ranch plans, conservation easements or other permanent protection plans, resource management plans, forest plans, etc.

Potential for the proposed action to improve quality or quantity of sustainable uses such as grazing, timber harvest, biomass utilization, recreation, etc. Grazing improvements may include actions to improve forage availability and/or distribution of livestock.