**STATEMENT**

**OF**

**MIKE PELLANT**

**GREAT BASIN RESTORATION INITIATIVE COORDINATOR**

**BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT**

**U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR**

**BEFORE THE SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS AND FORESTS**

**REGARDING THE GREAT BASIN RESTORATION INITIATIVE**

**October 11, 2007**

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear here today to discuss the major threats to
ecological and economic stability in the Great Basin and the Bureau of
Land Management's efforts through the Great Basin Restoration Initiative
to reduce these threats. My testimony will focus on the key threats of
invasive species, especially cheatgrass, and wildfires. Climate change,
including extended droughts, is expected to intensify these issues and
also negatively affect water management in the Great Basin. I am the
Coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management's Great Basin Restoration
Initiative and am responsible for coordinating restoration-related
activities across a five-state area for the Bureau of Land Management.

**[Background]{.underline}**

The Great Basin is North America's largest desert, encompassing 135
million acres of land between the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains in
western North America. The manager of the largest land base in the Great
Basin (includes parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and California) is
the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
with oversight of 75 million acres of public land. The Great Basin is
characterized by aridity (over half the area receives less than 12
inches annual precipitation) and a mix of shrubs \[sagebrush (*Artemisia
tridentata*) being the dominant\], with an understory of native grasses
and forbs. Today, population growth, wildfires, and invasive species are
reducing the quality of native rangelands at an accelerating rate (BLM
2000). Based on recent studies by the U.S. Geological Survey and others,
climate change could well be expected to accelerate these changes and
associated impacts.

The Great Basin is a land of wide, historical fluctuations in climate
both on a relatively short and long time frame. Extremes in
precipitation (wet years followed by multi-year extreme droughts) and
temperature challenge the management of livestock, wild horses and
burros, and wildlife on public lands. Given this variability in climate,
public land managers have flexibility in adjusting time and amount of
forage consumption and water use to sustain land health over the long
term. BLM managers evaluate these situations on a local basis and have
the regulatory authority to remove livestock or wild horses during
extended droughts when forage production or water sources are inadequate
to sustain native vegetation. The challenge is to separate the natural
climatic variation, especially extended droughts that have always
existed in the Great Basin, from climate change, in order to modify and
adapt management strategies to adjust to the changing environment.

**[Factors Relating to Climate Change, Including Water, Invasive
Species, and Wildfires in the Great Basin]{.underline}**

The impact of climate change on Great Basin ecosystems may be magnified
compared to other ecosystems due to the aridity and lower resiliency of
these lands. Rangelands in the Great Basin always are "on the edge"
given the uncertain timing and quantity of precipitation, invasive
species, altered fire regimes and increasing human population pressures.

**Water**

Water is the lifeblood of the Great Basin, given the low precipitation
and high evapotranspiration (the sum of
[evaporation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation) and
[plant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant)
[transpiration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration) from the
earth\'s land surface to
[atmosphere](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere)) over the majority
of the desert. Water is needed to support an increasing population
(three of the ten fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United
States - Boise, ID, Reno, NV, and Las Vegas, NV - are in or on the edge
of the Great Basin) while still meeting livestock, wildlife and fish
needs. The predicted changes of a decline in snowpack, earlier peak
spring streamflows, lower summer streamflows, and elevated stream
temperatures could have dramatic effects on habitats and resources
available to stream fishes (Isaak et al. 2007). Rainbow and brown trout
are predicted to be restricted to higher elevations (Jager et al. 1999).
The geographic distribution of the Lahontan cutthroat is projected to be
reduced (Dunham et al. 1999) while the bull trout, currently listed
under the Endangered Species Act as "threatened" with extinction in the
northern portion of the Great Basin, could potentially face even greater
risks as a result of climate change (Rieman et al. 1997).

Change in the timing and amount of streamflows and spring and seep
discharges will affect a wide range of wildlife species, livestock, and
wild horses and burros. Water availability from these sources could dry
up earlier in the summer as a result of the early melt of the snowpack
causing increased competition for water and forage across the landscape.
Pipelines and troughs installed by BLM and livestock permittees that
provide water for livestock, wild horses, and wildlife species over tens
of millions of acres may have reduced capacity to meet these needs.

Climate change and the associated impacts on the timing and quantity of
water available may exacerbate conflicts over water rights between
agricultural and urban interests. Proposals to transport water from the
Great Basin to Las Vegas are already a contentious issue and could
affect important aspects of human occupation and the resource values in
the Great Basin.

**Native Plant Communities and Invasive Species**

Invasive species are one of the greatest concerns of many managers in
the Great Basin.

A consortium of organizations led by The Nature Conservancy identified
the Great Basin as the third most endangered ecosystem in the United
States due in large part to the dominance of exotic species (Stein et
al. 2000). Cheatgrass (*Bromus tectorum*) is an invasive exotic and the
most ubiquitous invasive plant in the Great Basin, occupying over 25
million acres of public lands managed by BLM (BLM 2000). Besides being a
serious competitor with native plants, cheatgrass is a significant
contributor to the increase in frequency and size of wildfires in the
Great Basin (Whisenant 1990). Cheatgrass is expected to respond even
more favorably than most native plants to conditions with increased
atmospheric CO~2~ (Smith et al. 2000). One recent study hypothesized
that the increase in rangeland wildfires is partially due to enhanced
cheatgrass production stimulated by increasing CO~2~ levels (Ziska et
al. 2005). This study also found that cheatgrass will become more coarse
(e.g., lignin content will increase) in the future which will reduce the
time that it is palatable to livestock and wildlife and thereby result
in the greater accumulation of fuel loads.

Managers are also concerned about the predicted increase in woody
vegetation as a result of climate change. An increase in woodland
encroachment into shrublands/grasslands, including a significant
expansion of juniper into sagebrush steppe, is expected. One model
predicts that much of the sagebrush in the southern Great Basin could
eventually be replaced by Mojave Desert shrubs to the south due to
projected higher temperatures and less frost in this portion of the
Great Basin (Neilson et al. 2005). The increase in juniper trees will
reduce palatable forage for livestock, habitat for wildlife, and
protective understory vegetation resulting in more soil erosion. Loss of
sagebrush will have significant impacts on wildlife species, especially
sage-grouse and other sagebrush obligate species, which are dependent on
this shrub-dominated ecosystem for food and shelter (Knick 1999).

**Wildfires**

Wildfires in the Great Basin are a subject of debate again as
approximately 2.7 million Federal and non-Federal acres in the Great
Basin burned during the 2007 fire season. Over the last 17 years, nearly
16.2 million Federal and non-Federal acres have burned in the Great
Basin. Over 1.9 million acres of the total wildfire acres burned two or
more times during this same period due, in large part, to increased fuel
continuity as a result of the presence of annual grasses, including
cheatgrass. (Whisenant 1990) Wildfires spread quickly across such
landscapes. (Whisenant 1990) These figures do not include wildfires
prior to 1990 so the acreage of reburned areas in the Great Basin is
considerably larger. Fire suppression and rehabilitation costs, and
private property losses could increase if the plant community changes
projected for the Great Basin occur. Besides the increased cost to the
American public, wildfire behavior could be more extreme, especially in
areas where woody vegetation has increased fuel loads. Risks to fire
fighters and the public may continue to rise as well.

More severe and frequent wildfires will increase with the invasion of
exotic annual plants, such as cheatgrass, and with increased frequency
of extreme wet/dry conditions. Wet conditions result in the increased
spread of certain exotic annual grasses that then serve as a continuous
fuel for wildfires during subsequent dry periods. In turn, these
wildfires could further increase weed expansion, soil erosion, and
carbon loss. As the exotic annual grasses become more abundant, the
potential for fire increases, resulting in a positive feedback loop.
Increased wildfires in shrublands in the Great Basin and conversion to
cheatgrass dominance has now been documented to cause large scale
conversion of rangeland carbon sinks to carbon sources (Bradley et al.
2006). Disruptions to livestock operations on public lands could be more
common and habitat important to wildlife and wild horses and burros may
continue to decline. It is not known how climate change, more generally,
will impact the distribution of state or federal listed noxious weed
species that currently cause great ecological and economic harm within
the Great Basin.

**[Efforts to Address Environmental Threats and Climate Change in the
Great Basin]{.underline}**

**Planning**

The Great Basin Restoration Initiative (GBRI) has assisted in preparing
some draft guidance to address potential effects of climate change in
several Great Basin Land Use Plans. The Ely, Nevada, Resource Management
Plan currently underway now includes a landscape approach to restoration
which is closely tied to GBRI. GBRI promotes a strategy of maintaining
intact native plant communities and strategically restoring degraded
areas. This strategy is being used in other planning documents outside
the Great Basin.

Climate change is addressed in the "2006 Conservation Plan for Greater
Sage-Grouse in Idaho
([http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/cms/hunt/grouse/conserve_plan/]{.underline})"
as it was ranked as the ninth of 19 threats to sage-grouse and
sage-grouse habitat in Idaho. Twenty conservation measures (ranging from
public education to planning restoration projects) were developed to
help local sage-grouse working groups address climate change as they
develop conservation strategies and local projects. More emphasis on
climate change will be incorporated into land use and sage-grouse plans
in the future with additional agency and Departmental guidance and GBRI
technical assistance.

**Science and Monitoring**

A key component of GBRI is the application of science and monitoring to
improve our ability to maintain healthy landscapes and strategically
restore degraded areas. Consideration of potential effects of climate
change are incorporated into these restoration strategies since
treatments applied today will have to be applicable in the future to
meet resource and social needs. For example, re-establishment of
sagebrush in areas burned by wildfires is a high restoration priority.
Sagebrush is very sensitive to the local climatic conditions. Since
sagebrush has an expected life span of 50-100 years, it is imperative
that appropriate seed sources be selected for current seeding projects
to maximize the potential that the sagebrush will adapt to survive in an
altered climate in the future.

One important strategy to increase the resiliency of Great Basin
ecosystems to future disturbances and climate change is to either
maintain or restore a diverse native plant community. Native plant
diversity acts as an insurance policy against future changes by
including a suite of species adapted to different environmental
conditions. Loss of a few species, although not desirable, will not
cause the system to crash. To improve the BLM's ability to restore
degraded rangelands now and into the future, GBRI has sponsored a
regional science and development project to increase the availability of
native plants for restoration. This program, "Great Basin Native Plant
Selection and Increase Project" was initiated in 1999 as part of the
BLM's Native Plant Materials Development Initiative and has 17 state,
federal, academic and seed industry cooperators today
([http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/boise/research/shrub/greatbasin.shtml]{.underline}).
Native seed have been collected from nearly 1,500 sites in the Great
Basin providing the project cooperators with the ability to evaluate,
select and augment production of native plant seed. Having such
collections available for purchase in the future will provide managers
with the needed plant materials to re-establish diverse native plant
communities more resilient to the effects of a warmer climate with more
erratic precipitation patterns.

Reducing the size and extent of wildfires is another component of GBRI's
science program. GBRI is involved in the assessment of livestock grazing
effects on fire spread and severity in the Murphy Complex fire. This
wildfire burned nearly 650,000 acres in Idaho and Nevada this past
summer. A team of fire and resource specialists is addressing this issue
with rancher input, remote sensing, monitoring data, and fire models to
determine how livestock grazing may be used in the future to reduce
catastrophic wildfires. This is one of several projects in the Great
Basin addressing livestock, fuels, and wildfires.

Monitoring the potential impacts of climate change on the flora and
fauna on the 75 million acres of public land in the Great Basin requires
a landscape approach. GBRI is participating with the USGS on the
development of a "Great Basin Integrated Landscape Monitoring Pilot
Project" that will assist managers to predict effects of climate change
on stressors such as invasive species and wildfires at a landscape scale
([http://fresc.usgs.gov/research/StudyDetail.asp?Study_ID=566]{.underline}).
GBRI has also implemented a regional pilot project under the BLM
Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring Initiative project in the heart of
the Great Basin in the Owhyee Uplands
([http://web.id.blm.gov/owyheeuplands/]{.underline}). This project has
been designed in part to provide baseline data at the landscape level to
monitor plant community changes over time. This will improve the BLM's
ability to detect plant community changes over time and to better
distinguish climate change influences from other forms of disturbance.
GBRI has partnered with The Nature Conservancy to co-fund a landscape
ecologist to assist in this project.

BLM/GBRI is represented on the Executive Committee for the development
of the Intermountain Regional Ecological Observatory Network (IRON), the
Great Basin regional application to the National Science Foundation\'s
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)
(http://www.neon-iron.org/). NEON seeks to establish a continent-wide
distribution of environmental monitoring infrastructure, including eddy
flux towers, sensors for air, soil, and surface water temperatures,
windspeed and direction, precipitation, and barometric pressure,
photosynthetically active radiation, plant transpiration, and
atmospheric composition (CO, CO~2~, O~3~, others). Measuring biological
response to climate and climatic variation, including the spread of
invasive species and infectious diseases, is central to this program.
The IRON application seeks to install the monitoring infrastructure on
BLM land in the Utah West Desert. IRON asks how ecosystems and their
components will respond to changes in natural and human-induced climate
across spatial and temporal scales and what system attributes best
predict sensitivity to climatic factors. BLM scientists are
participating in the design of experiments specific to land management
in the Great Basin.

GBRI is representing the BLM in the development of the "Great Basin
Research and Management Partnership" to improve communication and
research to better meet manager needs across the Great Basin. Over 200
managers, scientists, non-government organizations and private citizens
met in Reno, Nevada, in the winter of 2006 and identified climate
change, invasive species, and wildfires as key challenges in the Great
Basin where better linkages between scientists and managers would prove
beneficial. GBRI is also an active participant in the development of the
Great Basin Environmental Program, sponsored by University of Nevada
Reno,

The BLM is an active participant in other research that has or is
producing data and analysis with application in adaptation to climate
change. These efforts include the National Center for Ecological
Analysis and Synthesis Nevada Conservation Area Design, the Joint Fire
Science-Funded Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project and the
USDA-funded Integrating Weed Control and Restoration for Great Basin
Rangelands.

**Restoration Implementation**

Restoring native vegetation where conversions to exotic annual grasses
or noxious weeds have occurred will provide greater plant community
stability under an environment influenced by climate change. In
addition, carbon sequestration will be enhanced in native communities
compared to annual grass communities that reburn at frequent intervals
(Bradley et al. 2006). Nearly 25 million acres of public lands in the
Great Basin have some cheatgrass as a component of the community (BLM
2000).

The Department of the Interior's Healthy Lands Initiative
([http://www.doi.gov/initiatives/healthylands.html]{.underline}) is
providing support and funds to implement restoration projects at the
landscape level with multiple partners. All of the projects implemented
under this Initiative will promote the maintenance or restoration of
healthy native plant communities with the increased ability to survive
or adapt to anticipated changes in the environment in the future. Three
of the six geographic areas receiving Healthy Lands Initiative funding
are in the Great Basin which provides multiple opportunities to improve
or maintain land health in this important landscape.

The increased focus on native seeds and seeding equipment improvement
supported by GBRI will improve success and efficiency in the Emergency
Stabilization and rehabilitation (ES&R) program. ES&R seeding treatments
after wildfires will not result in the restoration of fully functioning
native plant communities, however these treatments will start the
process toward site stabilization and provide future opportunities for
restoration to native or desired plant communities if a restoration
funding is available.

GBRI will continue to serve as a focal point for the application of
science and technology to successfully restore Great Basin rangelands.
As the science and predictive ability of climate change models continues
to evolve, GBRI will provide a basin-wide perspective on this issue to
inform BLM managers of appropriate restoration strategies.

**[Summary]{.underline}**

Based on studies by the U.S. Geological Survey and others, the Great
Basin is experiencing climate change effects that are potentially
expected to increase in the future and may increase impacts of invasive
species and wildfires. Managers in the Great Basin are cognizant of some
of these changes but the magnitude of the changes expected in the future
probably exceed the capability of this fragile desert to adapt in full
to the changes. However, the BLM has a long history of adapting to
environmental variability, so mechanisms are in place to adjust
management to accommodate for some of the projected changes. GBRI and
the BLM will maintain a close watch on invasive species and climate
change in the Great Basin and the science that U.S. Geological Survey
and others provide. GBRI will continue to assist managers in the
adaptation process by supporting the science and technology required to
maintain or restore healthy plant communities.

This concludes my testimony. I would be happy to answer any questions
you may have.

**References**

Bradley, B., R.A. Houghton, J. Mustard, S.P. Hamburg. 2006. Invasive
grass reduces aboveground carbon stocks in shrublands of the Western US.
Global Change Biology, 12:1815-1822.

Bureau of Land Management: 2000, *The Great Basin: healing the land*.
National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, ID. 36p.

Dunham, J.B., M.M. Peacock, B.E. Rieman, R.E. Schroeter, and G.L.
Vinyard. 1999. Local and Geographic Variability in the Distribution of
Stream-Living Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. Trans. Am. Fish. Society; V 128:
875-889.

Isaak, D. J. Buffington, C. Luce, J. McKean, B.E. Rieman, and R.F.
Thurow. 2007. Impacts and Uncertainties of Climate Change on Idaho
Streams and Fish Communities. Presentation made at the Idaho Chapter,
American Fisheries Society annual meeting. February 23, 2007. Boise, ID.

Jager, H.I.; W. Van Winkle; and B.D. Holcomb. 1999. Would Hydrologic
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Knick, S.T.: 1999, 'Requiem for a sagebrush ecosystem?' *Northwest Sci.*
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Rieman, B.E. D. C. Lee, and R.F. Thurow. 1997. Distribution, Status, and
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Smith, S.D., T.E. Huxman, S.F. Zitzer, T.N. Charlet, D.C. Housman, J.S.
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ecosystem. Nature, 408:79-80.

Stein B.A., Kutner L.S. and Adams J.S.: 2000, *Precious Heritage: The
Status of Biodiversity in the United States.* Oxford University Press,
New York. 399 p.

Whisenant, S. G.: 1990, 'Changing fire frequencies on Idaho\'s Snake
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Ziska, L.H., J.B. Reeves III, B Blank. 2005. The impact of recent
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