TNCC: Citizen Scientists on the Uncompahgre Plateau
by Kris Holstrom
It was a trip down memory lane for me last week when I participated in the U.S. Forest Service ‘citizen scientists’ training on the Uncompahgre Plateau. I have a degree in Forest Management from Utah State University from many, many years ago. It is a field I’ve always loved and actually worked in for several summers before moving into horticultural pursuits, organic farming and sustainability coordinating. This experience was a wonderful renewal of those memories.
The Forest Service is embarking on an interesting project aimed at restoring healthy forest conditions on the UP. They will be doing treatments on about 17,000 acres and need to monitor the results. The goal is to restore the more natural open meadow and widely spaced ponderosa pines in some areas – and reduce fuel loads so natural wildfires can occur without devasting effects in other areas (more frequent, low intensity burns rather than occasionally high intensity burns).