Women in Landscape-Scale Conservation: Cheryl Decker

Women's History Month

Conservation at landscape scales takes cooperation, patience, and people! In honor of Women's History Month in March, we want to highlight the work of influential women who dedicate their time and energy to protecting our cultural, recreational, and natural resources. 

How did you get started working in landscape-scale conservation?

Zion National Park has a large cover of annual grasses, primarily cheatgrass, which is a highly flammable fuel in a box canyon visited by millions of people. We started experimenting with ways to control cheatgrass while releasing the native bunch grasses that naturally had interstitial spaces and made the landscape less prone to the catastrophic spread of fire. This led to a large scale 10,000 acre post-fire treatment in 2006 designed to disrupt the increased fire cycle that a monoculture of cheatgrass would have produced.

What does the term connected conservation mean to you?

I was lucky enough to start my National Park Service career at Yellowstone, so I immediately jump to the Greater Yellowstone concept that natural systems don't pay attention to human imposed boundaries. It's a lot more complicated to think on the ecoregion or watershed level, but the outcomes have far greater value than when we end management at a fence line.

Cheryl Decker is the North Coast and Cascades Invasive Plant Management Team Liaison.

Tell us about a project that you have worked on that you are especially proud of.

My team is currently collaborating with the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission, Seattle City Light, and Skagit Valley Provincial Park in British Columbia on a project to map reed canary grass across international boundaries. This is a first step toward collaborative control in the tributaries and wetlands adjacent to Ross Lake in North Cascades National Park.

If you could collaborate with anyone or any organization who would it be?

My career with the National Park Service has already enabled me to collaborate with many amazing NPS staff, researchers, graduate students, universities, non-profit organizations, Tribes, and county and state parks. This is a great question because, as I wind down on my career, it makes me more aware and grateful that so many opportunities for collaboration exist.

Any advice for women wanting to get into the field?

Building good relationships is the most important step towards getting any job done!

Women in Landscape Conservation