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For over 100 years, the elimination of fire as a natural ecosystem
process has shifted the landscape away from a diversity of age classes
and community types and towards a predominance of late-successional
woody plant communities with heavy fuel loading. Over 10,000 acres
of shrub steppe habitats have been replaced with dense closed-canopied
pinyon-juniper woodlands. The most profound effect is the loss of
wildlife habitat, loss of aquatic habitat, loss of habitat diversity
and a decrease in wildlife and fish populations on a landscape scale
within the park.
To arrest this trend, the staff at Great Basin is currently conducting
planning and completing projects that will return native plant communities
to conditions similar to those found under a natural fire regime.
This will involve projects that appear atypical for a National Park.
As an initial step forests will be thinned to remove the heavy concentrations
of fuels and allow understory vegetation to return. Once this step
is complete, prescribed fire will be used to maintain healthy plant
communities.
Tod Williams is the Chirf of Resource Management.
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