POCATELLO — Wildfires have decimated the ecology of the Great Basin, and expensive measures will be needed to repair the vast rangelands, a federal expert says.
Mike Pellant, rangeland ecologist for the Bureau of Land Management in Boise, presented a new approach to rangeland management during May's Wild Idaho! 2000 conference near Stanley.
The bureau wants to adopt an active approach to restoring the Great Basin, reaching from Idaho's Snake River Plain into Nevada, Utah, Oregon and California.
The area has been besieged by wildfires in recent years that have blackened millions of acres and cost industry and recreation millions of dollars.
"Piecemeal approaches aren't going to cut it," Pellant said, referring to BLM's current approach. "We're hitting hot spots but not taking care of the overall problem."
Fires burned 1.7 million acres of rangeland in 1999. According to Pellant's data, it was the worst Great Basin fire season in four decades. He said destruction pushed sage grouse numbers so low that a petition to list the birds under the Endangered Species Act is near.
A report by the Nature Conservancy called the post-fire Great Basin the third most imperiled ecosystem in the United States.
Pellant said the problem stems from the earliest days of grazing.
"Believe me, when we go back to before there was any regulation, we lost a lot of native species then."
He said improper grazing allows in the invasive species like cheat grass, which burns easily, destroying the native cover.
However, he added, "This is a problem that transcends grazing."
Grazing opened the way for cheat grass, but now there are other contributing factors, such as off-road vehicle use and mining.
"Almost any of our human actions can cause openings if they cause disturbance," he said.
BLM's new approach, Pellant said, is to be "proactive at the landscape level."
The agency wants to restore functioning native plant communities in priority watersheds.
At about $100 per acre, the price tag seems high, Pellant said, until it is compared with the cost of current approaches to wildland management.
It costs $71 an acre to put out a fire. To rehabilitate a landscape after a fire — replanting and erecting fences to keep livestock out, and erosion control — costs $64 an acre. And post-fire weed control runs about $70 an acre.
Rehabilitation after the 1999 Great Basin fires ran $27 million.
The bureau is just beginning public outreach efforts about the basin. Pellant hopes that, if enough people support the move, Congress will help fund it. He also seeks partnerships with private sources.
"We're going to protect our investment," he said.