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UP Project |
The UP Project, US Forest Service, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute –Colorado State University (CFRI), local conservation groups, forest product industry representatives and interested members of the community have come together to enhance the resiliency, diversity and productivity of the native ecosystem in the Uncompahgre Mesas area of the Uncompahgre Plateau, CO using best available science and collaboration.
The Uncompahgre Mesas is a 70,000-acre landscape located on the Uncompahgre Plateau. The area includes 25, Sawmill, Ironsprings, and Love Mesas. The perennial water sources in the area include: East Fork Escalante, Middle Fork Escalante, Monitor, and Cottonwood creeks. The first phase of this comprehensive restoration effort will focus on a 16,000 acre landscape within the larger area. The phase 1 focus area is comprised of aspen, mixed conifer and ponderosa pine forest types. The UP Project was successful in receiving a $5,000 National Forest Foundation grant to facilitate the initiation of this project.
A Need for Restoration
Many forest community types in Colorado have been altered during the last 120 years by logging, grazing, proliferation of roads and vehicular traffic, fire suppression and other activities. The changes to these forests have, in some cases, increased the potential for catastrophic fire and adversely affected many biological processes and aesthetic values. Changes include:
- Disruption of natural fire regimes;
- Dramatic increases in dense stands of small diameter, stressed trees;
- Increased mortality from insect infestations and diseases;
- Fragmentation of habitat and vegetation;
- Disruption of vital watershed functions;
- And diminished native herbaceous understory.
Therefore, this collaborative group seeks to restore the ecosystem to a more natural condition, consistent with the historical ranges of variability for the various vegetation community types, and to reduce the risk of unnatural crown fires both within stands and across the landscape.
The Goals of the Project are:
- Collaborate. The partnership seeks to bring together individuals with different perspectives, experiences, and expertise to develop innovative resource management alternatives. Landscape scale assessment, project design, analysis, implementation and monitoring will be carried out collaboratively by actively engaging a balanced, diverse and complete group of stakeholders. Whenever feasible, stakeholders will strive for consensus in making decisions about the project.
- Restore ecosystem structure, composition and function. The protection and restoration of ecosystem structure, composition and function encourages viable populations of all native species in natural patterns of abundance and distribution. Using passive and active management techniques, vegetation communities will be moved toward conditions that are more consistent with their historical ranges of variability. The establishment and maintenance of more natural patterns of vegetation diversity and abundance are integral to ecological restoration.
- Develop and establish research demonstration sites. Research demonstration sites aid in the development of environmentally sound, economically sustainable and socially acceptable approaches to forest ecosystem restoration. Specifically, studies will be aimed at determining pre-settlement conditions and the effect of different treatment techniques on various vegetation types.
If you are interested in becoming involved in this exciting effort, please contact us at: UPProject@UPProject.org.
Tour of ponderosa pine stands on the Uncompahgre Plateau in June 2007
A group discussion amongst the ponderosa pine stands on the Uncompahgre Plateau in November 2007
Touring a wildland fire use area
