Wildlife Conservation Through Sustainable Ranching
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WLFW Launches New Website: WLFW.org
NEW SITE FUSES WESTERN WLFW EFFORTS AND LINKS TO NATIONAL INITIATIVES
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Working Lands for Wildlife is proud to announce the launch of WLFW.org - a centralized site connecting conservation science, technology transfer resources, and success stories across the sagebrush biome and Great Plains grasslands.
“The new WLFW.org helps complete the transition from species-focused efforts to an ecosystem-wide focus under our frameworks for conservation action,” said Julia Debes, WLFW director of agricultural communications. “Furthermore, this hub approach allows for greater future flexibility as WLFW continues to adapt and grow.”
Since 2018, the digital home for WLFW communications for the western United States centered on the websites for the Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI) and Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiative (LPCI). While these communications outlets have been effective, they had aged. An update was needed for WLFW to successfully operate digitally. The new site provides WLFW with the flexibility to deliver information from USDA and partnering organizations under the new frameworks.
The new WLFW.org website is completely modernized, responsive for mobile users, secure and accessible. The website serves as a central hub of information on all WLFW initiatives in sagebrush country and the Great Plains, with substantial linkages - where appropriate - to USDA NRCS web properties. While this website focuses on the two biome regions in the West, this site also includes linkages to WLFW initiatives elsewhere in the United States.
The website also helps direct producers, NRCS field staff, and others to the various resources that WLFW has helped create or helps maintain, including the myriad resources developed by the SGI and LPCI. Doing so preserves the great resources on these legacy websites while also connecting them to WLFW’s landscape-approach to conservation.
Finally, the website allows for flexibility to add information on other western WLFW efforts - like the migratory big game pilot project in Wyoming - as this work expands over time.
“The new, centralized website allows WLFW to produce and share specialized WLFW content efficiently and effectively while also providing an additional platform for amplifying partner-led communications,” Debes said. “We’re excited to offer this centralized location for finding the latest in rangeland science, guidance on adopting practices in the field, and rancher success stories across the West.”
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New Short Film and Interview Highlights How Managed Riparian Grazing Produces Better Outcomes for People, Livestock, and Wildlife
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LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL OF MANAGED RIPARIAN GRAZING TO RESTORE, RE-WET, AND REVITALIZE THE WEST'S RIPARIAN AREAS.
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Carol Evans, producer of the powerful film "Creating Miracles in the Desert: Restoring Dixie Creek" has released a new film called "Changing a Landscape to a Lifescape, the Humboldt Ranch Story" that highlights what's possible when producers, agencies, and partners work together to improve grazing in riparian ecosystems.
To learn more about this work and the power of managed riparian grazing, we sat down with Evans, a now-retired fisheries biologist with the Bureau of Land Management, and Dr. Sherman Swanson, an emeritus rangeland and riparian scientist with the University of Nevada-Reno and the Nevada Cooperative Extension office. The pair share lessons learned from their decades of work and research focused on managed riparian grazing, and why managing riparian grazing produces better outcomes for people and wildlife.
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Watch "Changing a Landscape to a Lifescape"
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Carol Evans' latest film: "Changing a Landscape to a Lifescape, the Humboldt Ranch Story" was recently awarded an honorable mention from the Wild and Working Lands Film Festival and shares the incredible transformation that happened on the Humboldt Ranch's riparian areas when ranch owners and managers started working with Evans to improve their range and riparian grazing strategies. WLFW is proud to have supported this film.
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| Read Ask an Expert with Carol Evans and Sherman Swanson
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With roughly six decades of experience between them, few rangeland practitioners have as much knowledge as Carol Evans and Sherman Swanson.
We sat down with Evans and Swanson to learn about riparian systems, why they're so valuable to wildlife, livestock, and people, and how managing riparian grazing can produce more forage, more wildlife habitat, and more "free water" across the arid West.
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The 'Art of Range' Podcast Features WLFW Scientists and 'Defend the Core'
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JEREMY MAESTAS AND DIRAC TWIDWELL EXPLAIN THE DEFEND THE CORE STRATEGY AND HOW IT CAN HELP RANGELANDS FROM INVASIVE SPECIES
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Is it time to surrender the Western U.S. to cheatgrass and frequent fire or regroup and work smarter? Jeremy Maestas, NRCS National Sagebrush Ecosystem Specialist, and Dirac Twidwell, WLFW science adivsor and professor at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, present the Defend the Core framework for invasive species management, a fresh approach that prioritizes preventing degradation where intact, functional plant communities exist and reducing risk of invasives spreading from areas already compromised. After a 100 years of trying to understand invasive plant dynamics, conservationists now recognize that preservationist passive management will not cause degraded plant communities to return to a reference state.
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Episode 99 introduces the threat of invasive annual grasses and eastern redcedar and how they are jeopardizing healthy rangelands.
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| Episode 100 details how using a proactive 'Defend the Core' strategy can help keep intact rangelands from becoming degraded while also expanding those cores.
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Find more news and resources at WLFW.org
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Our heartfelt thanks to Howard Vincent, retiring CEO of Pheasants Forever/Quail Forever, for his leadership. Howard helped build the incredible and monumental partnership between PF/QF and NRCS and WLFW since the beginning, and his support has been crucial to our success in keeping working lands in working hands! Thank you, Howard, for more than two decades of service in support of voluntary conservation and our best wishes for the next chapter to come.
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The USDA is making funding available for agricultural producers and forest landowners nationwide to participate in voluntary conservation programs and adopt climate-smart practices. NRCS is making available $850 million in fiscal year 2023 for its oversubscribed conservation programs: the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) and Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). Follow the link above to learn more and apply.
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Mule deer, pronghorn, and sage grouse are all benefiting from wildlife-friendly fence modifications in Sublette County, Wyoming. Since 2017, partners, including the NRCS, have converted more than 500 miles of fencing in the Upper Green area and an additional 200 miles of fences have been made wildlife-friendly int he county in the past decade. Sublette County is one of the areas targeted under the new Migratory Big Game Conservation Partnership between Wyoming and the NRCS. Learn more about this pilot project here.
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The She Goes Outdoors podcast recently featured low-tech process-based river restoration projects in Nebraska and Iowa. The projects were funded by the NRCS' Conservation Innovation Grant program, and the partners installed beaver dam analogs to help jump start natural recovery processes that will help recharge groundwater, reconnect floodplains, improve wildlife habitat and ultimately provide more forage.
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K-State researchers have launched a study to improve the effectiveness of controls on woody plants, an effort they say will help to preserve the health of native grasslands in Kansas. The study is supported by the NRCS, which awarded the K-State researchers a three-year grant for $843,000 to address the issue of woody encroachment.
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Agricultural producers and private landowners can begin applying for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) General signup starting February 27 through April 7, 2023. General CRP helps producers and landowners establish long-term, resource-conserving plant species, such as approved grasses or trees, to control soil erosion, improve water quality and enhance wildlife habitat on cropland. Additionally, General CRP includes a Climate-Smart Practice Incentive to help increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by helping producers and landowners establish trees and permanent grasses, enhance wildlife habitat, and restore wetlands.
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Working Lands for Wildlife is the Natural Resources Conservation Service's premier approach for conserving America's working lands to benefit people, wildlife, and rural communities. In the West, WLFW is guided by two, action-based frameworks for conservation. The framework approach is designed to increase conservation and restoration of rangelands by addressing major threats to rangeland health and through the implementation of conservation measures that limit soil disturbance, support sustainable grazing management, promote the strategic use of prescribed fire, and support native grassland species. Together, the frameworks leverage the power of voluntary, win-win conservation solutions to benefit people and wildlife from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
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