Translating Science to Action in Southern California’s Montane Forests

 
The montane forests of Southern California provide countless ecosystem services to the surrounding region, but as they face many climate-related impacts, particularly changes to wildfire regimes, the conservation of these forests is becoming increasingly important. Researchers supported by this Southwest CASC project will leverage and extend an established collaborative effort known as the Southern California Montane Forests Project to create a forest conservation strategy with recommendations for climate adaptation. Through the development of a regional decision support tool, forest and resource managers will be better informed to implement strategies aimed at reducing the occurrence and impacts of catastrophic wildfires in montane forests.
 
Public Summary
 
In the Peninsular and Transverse Mountain Ranges, montane forests (above 1200 m in elevation) are primarily restricted to “sky islands” such as the San Jacinto, San Bernardino, and San Gabriel Mountains. Montane forests protect the upper watersheds of all the region’s major rivers and provide a high number of ecosystem services, with the watersheds alone providing about 40% of the water used for human, agricultural, and industrial purposes in southern California. However, these forests are facing numerous threats, including intensifying cycles of precipitation and drought, increasing temperatures, major bark beetle outbreaks, tree mortality events, severe wildfire, urban development, and invasive species. All these threats have the ability to greatly impact the health and longevity of montane forests. The conservation of these forests depends upon updating and integrating our understanding of how these factors interact with fire to increase forest vulnerability.
 
This project seeks to leverage and extend an established collaborative effort in progress: the Southern California Montane Forests Project. Established in 2020, the Montane Forests Project addresses both science gaps and social barriers in order to accelerate the implementation of active management, and is a collaboration of the Forest Service, the USGS Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, San Diego State University, and the Climate Science Alliance. The current project will advance science development by improving an existing prioritization product and migrating it into a more transparent communication platform. To overcome existing barriers to partnership, we will also foster meaningful engagement with community thought leaders to build a shared scientific foundation and a path for forest management moving forward. Doing so will enable decision makers to move past barriers and create a strong foundation for advancing projects with public and partner backing. Deliverables for this project will flow from a phased process of partnership and product development followed by implementation and monitoring of outcomes, as well as the creation of a shared vision with partners for forest management.
 
This project includes 4 million acres of the Forest Service’s Wildfire Risk Reduction Landscape. It will provide managers with quantitative and defensible prioritization guidelines for use in project planning, including NEPA/CEQA documents, and will provide extended science support into the implementation phase of management. It addresses the need for monitoring for successful adaptive management, and brings focus to meaningful engagement with the preservation community in order to build a shared and actionable pathway for forest management.