Cooperative, cross-boundary management facilitates large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts

Abstract

In California and across the United States, landscape restoration projects often require cross-boundary cooperation, though successful examples are rare and not well understood. This case study describes the Burney Gardens timber harvesting plan, a cooperative, cross-boundary meadow restoration project undertaken by private corporate forest landowners in Northern California as part of a larger collaborative restoration effort. The project is notable because it (1) received institutional support -both financial and political -from federal, regional and local sources and (2) engaged a diverse group of stakeholders in pre-project planning with multiple agency partners. This approach enabled the project plan to pass through the rigorous California regulatory system in an unusually rapid fashion despite its complexity. The collaborative model of the Burney Gardens project is relevant to other restoration efforts, particularly as diverse ownerships across the West implement large-scale projects that cross property boundaries, including those of federal and private lands. I ncreasingly, large-scale restoration projects have become a priority for land managers in the United States, leading them to look beyond reserved lands (e.g., national parks) to the mix of private and public lands that characterize many watersheds (Lindenmayer and Franklin 2002 The Burney Gardens timber harvesting plan (THP) is a cross-boundary, cooperative restoration plan developed by four private forest landowners in Northern California (Shasta County) that are part of a CFLR group. The THP was developed to restore a degraded meadow system being encroached by lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), now growing in overstocked conditions as a result of fire suppression. Watercourses within the THP are degraded due to channelization and loss of riparian vegetation; this has resulted in erosion and insufficient shade. The Burney Gardens THP is now one of the largest watershed and meadow restoration projects ever proposed in California; restoration treatments include removal of lodgepole pine from the meadow as well as channel restoration. Some treatments have begun, such as thinning treatments around edges of the meadow, though much work remains (hydrological treatments are expected to begin summer 2015).The Burney Gardens THP is notable for multiple reasons: it engaged government Scott Carnegie Online: http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu/ landingpage.cfm?article=ca.v069n01p50&fulltext=yes doi: 10.3733/ca.v069n01p50The Burney Gardens timber harvesting plan, which covers over 2,500 acres of land held by four different owners, is one of the largest watershed and meadow restoration projects proposed in California.

Mapping and assessing ecosystems and their services: a comparative approach to ecosystem service supply in Suriname and French Guiana

“…As neighbouring countries share ecosystems, they also share ecosystem processes, functions and, hence, ES (Daily 1997;López-Hoffman et al 2010). Safeguarding ecosystems and their services, therefore, requires cross-or transboundary ecosystem management (Kelly and Kusel 2015). This is one of the strengths of the ES concept, indeed (McIntyre 2014;Kelly and Kusel 2015), as it creates the potential for the framing of shared conservation goals, stakeholder inclusion and linking multiple ES and assessing their trade-offs (López-Hoffman et al 2010).…”