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Land Trusts, Field Stations, and the Future
of Land Stewardship in the West
Winter/Spring Lecture Series

The American West is undergoing rapid land use change, especially on the 170,000 square miles of grazed grasslands and woodlands in private ownership. These lands, rather than the higher elevation public lands managed by federal agencies, hold most of the biodiversity of our region. And yet, as they are rapidly developed and fragmented, their value as large intact wildlands is being immeasurably diminished. A recent study of land subdivision and habitat fragmentation in northern Arizona – commissioned by the Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association – reveals just how much is currently being lost. Since 1959, 2.2 million acres of private lands in northern Arizona along the I-40 corridor have been platted or sold. Less than half, 2 million acres remain in wildlands vegetation, but much of that will be threatened with development over the next decade.

Fortunately, there are counter-trends. There is a growing land trust movement in the West, and more interest in using large field stations for monitoring and controlling environmental change than ever before. Over the last four years, Northern Arizona University and its private and federal partners have made an unprecedented commitment to developing the largest field station network of any region in the United States, including the Babbitt Ranches, the Centennial Forest, the Merriam-Powell Field Stations, and Fossil Creek.

This lecture series brings in some of the country’s leaders in the management of field stations and land trusts to brief our university and the surrounding community on how to use these opportunities to forge a new more inclusive and ecologically sensitive agenda for land use in the West. They will discuss how to set field station and land trust objectives, how to manage research projects for maximum benefit to the land community, and how to partner with surrounding land stewards to implement the results of research. Join us for these discussions, and for making a long term impact on the destiny of our region!

Series Schedule: (click on dates for more information)

January 29 12:00 Noon University Union, Havasupai Room	Remote Landscapes and High Biodiversity: Field Station Management in the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona Wade Serbrooke, Ph.D. Director, American Museum of Natural History
February 19 12:00 Noon University Union, Havasupai Room	Bringing scientists together to solve problems: desertification and research on the Jornada Experimental Range Ed L. Frederickson Research Scientist, New Mexico State University
February 19 2:00 P.M. University Union, Havasupai Room	The business of science at a large field station: lessons from the Jornada Experimental Range Kris Havstad Supervisory Scientist, New Mexico State University
March 5 12:00 Noon University Union, Havasupai Room	Biological Field Stations: An opportunity to walk the talk Phillipe S. Cohen, Ph.D. Administrative Director, Stanford University
March 12 12:00 Noon University Union, Havasupai Room	Making the science relevant to management and policy: lessons from the Pacific Northwest Art McKee Director, Andrews Experimental Forest, The University of Montana
March 26 12:00 Noon University Union, Havasupai Room	Land stewardship and conservation in the Colorado Rockies: local, regional, and global issues John Harte Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of California, Berkeley
April 1 12:00 Noon University Union, Kaibab Room	Whole thinking for land conservationists Peter Forbes Director, Trust for Public Land, Center for Land and People

All lectures are free, open to the public, and handicap accessible.

Co-sponsored by:
Ecological Monitoring and Assessment
Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research
Centennial Forest
Trust for Public Lands
and the Diablo Trust

If you have questions, call David Fiss at (928) 523-7087