BY MARY O'BRIEN
It all started in 2010. I was cold-calling Richfield District Ranger Jason Kling about what I’d just seen after visiting a site on the south end of Utah's Monroe Mountain. The Fishlake National Forest had opened a public comment period on proposed vegetation treatments there aimed at increasing aspen. But some aspen that appeared on the map for burning because they were overtopped by conifers like fir and spruce didn’t have conifer and looked healthy. The nearby sagebrush community, which was slated to be seeded with non-native grasses, seemed in most locations to have an unusually good native understory of grasses and wildflower plants.
Jason’s response was surprising. He indicated that the map the district had published mistakenly included some aspen that didn’t have spruce and fir overtopping them, depriving them of sunlight, and so would not need to be burned. He agreed that seeding of the nearby sagebrush community would only be done where invasive cheatgrass was present, and the seeding would be with native species. That seemed to solve the problems I had phoned about.
“But I’ve got a bigger problem,” Jason added. He had a whole mountain of aspen and some of it was in trouble, he explained, because of too much browsing by elk and cattle. The state, not the Forest Service, manages elk.
I told him that a consensus-based group that included local, state, and federal agencies, academics, and representatives of hunting and conservation groups (including the Grand Canyon Trust), had just published a report called “Guidelines for Aspen Restoration on the National Forests in Utah.” Maybe he’d like to test out the guidelines on Monroe Mountain with a similar, consensus-based group focused on the problems of aspen on this one mountain? Perhaps the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources would join the group so that elk management would be part of the effort to restore aspen, a favored elk habitat on this hunter-friendly mountain. Thus began the Monroe Mountain Working Group and an ambitious, decade-plus restoration, monitoring, and research project that is ongoing today.
Jason and initial interested entities succeeded in convincing 19 representatives of every interested stakeholder group and local and state agency to join the working group. The group is co-convened by the Grand Canyon Trust and the Grazing Improvement Program of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, and expertly facilitated by Steven Daniels of Utah State University. For 10 years now, all decisions and recommendations have been made by consensus — not majority vote.
Consensus is a considerable accomplishment because Monroe Mountain aspen restoration faces just about every challenge possible. Suppressing wildfires has allowed spruce, fir, and other conifers to eventually overtop and shade out the aspen in mixed forests known as “seral aspen.” For decades, cattle, elk, deer, and sheep have relentlessly devoured the sprouts in aspen-only stands, called “persistent aspen,” preventing young trees from growing. Without new recruits, stands of aspen age and die. The Forest Service has been avoiding setting prescribed fires around private inholdings — parcels of private land surrounded by national forest — for fear the fires would spread into the private forests. But the Forest Service has also avoided cutting conifers around these inholdings, because it might disqualify adjacent wilderness study areas from wilderness consideration. Populations of boreal toads—a potential candidate for federal listing as a threatened species that depends on ponds and forests—have declined. And, complicating matters, goshawk, protected under a conservation plan, require mature and old-growth forests in which to nest.
KREIG RASMUSSEN
To cut to the chase: the Monroe Mountain Working Group met regularly for four years to come up with proposed recommendations. We did field tours together, with research showing that elk, deer, cattle, and sheep all graze on aspen and that most persistent aspen stands had not been able to recruit any sprouts above browse height (six feet) for between 30 and 140 years. Then, within the next two years, Jason and the Richfield Ranger District completed the public review process for the Monroe Mountain Aspen Ecosystems Restoration Project Environmental Impact Statement. No one challenged its plan to spend the next decade burning conifer and aspen, mechanically removing conifer from some aspen, and undertaking key monitoring, a remarkable accomplishment amid diverse stakeholder interests.
Volunteer time and extensive funding by the Forest Service, state agencies, and individual member groups have allowed monitoring to proceed to better understand aspen on Monroe Mountain. We’ve worked to determine the role of elk in eating aspen sprouts and whether very old, dying aspen stands can recover if protected from animals that might eat their sprouts. We’ve also studied how elk, deer, cows, and sheep use post-burn aspen sprouts in mixed aspen and conifer stands and whether extensive burning of these stands will draw these browsers away from aspen-only forests. We’ve studied how the understory plants are doing. Much of the monitoring and research has been done by graduate students with forest ecologist Dr. Sam St. Clair of Brigham Young University. In 2019, a national team undertook extensive fire-behavior research while prescribed fires burned on Monroe Mountain.
KREIG RASMUSSEN
The results? Fire is succeeding in regenerating aspen in mixed aspen and conifer forests, mechanical removal is having mixed results, and some, but not all, aspen-only stands are starting to successfully grow young trees. Increased state-issued hunting permits are reducing the number of elk eating aspen sprouts, and no stand appears to be too old or decrepit to recover once it is protected from hoofed animals. Less is understood about progress for native understory plants.
The lessons for other public lands issues? Consensus works, but expert facilitation and a diversity of dedicated group members are essential. Undertaking public environmental reviews encourages diverse stakeholders to weigh in. It’s key to be open to alternative approaches to problems, care for the habitat of multiple species, and face scientific evidence. Restoration is worth it.
Mary O’Brien directs the Trust’s Utah Forests Program and is a member of the Monroe Mountain Working Group.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed by Advocatecontributors are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Grand Canyon Trust.
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