Provide implementation, monitoring, and strategy integration capacity to support the salmon and challis field offices, the idaho BLM state office, and other regional and state partners to improve…

Provide implementation, monitoring, and strategy integration capacity to support the salmon and challis field offices, the idaho BLM state office, and other regional and state partners to improve climate resilience and habitat quality by conserving water at natural water sources through water development improvements, and by protecting water sources, streams, and wetland and riparian areas via virtual fencing and traditional riparian exclosure fencing. Additionally, our work will accelerate riparian restoration and associated upland restoration via seed collection, bolstering pollinator resources, and through grazing management projects in high priority idaho sagebrush landscapes. The proposed work will help support and maintain functioning wildlife habitats and will help to provide for the long-term conservation of wildlife and biodiversity on public lands. We will deliver and support BLM and partners on additional riparian restoration projects and integrate them with essential support services for science-based prioritization, implementation, monitoring, and adaptive management. The additional implementation of grazing and management practices tools that include virtual fencing and stock water distribution systems will align with BLM priorities and plans to improve wildlife habitat quality and connectivity and improve range conditions. We will look for opportunities to connect work in the upper salmon with other priority landscapes in idaho. The scope of what we are proposing is scalable, and we will look to BLM to help determine the desired scope and deliverables. The proposed efforts will: 1) benefit the blms mission to conserve the natural resources of the region, 2) directly benefit the people and communities of lemhi and custer counties and other project locations through workforce development and contracting opportunities, 3) improve important habitat conditions for wildlife including sage-grouse and aquatic species, and 4) improve riparian-upland integration, that better balances grazing use with wildlife needs in sensitive habitat locations like riparian resources. All told, this approach leverages science, monitoring, and complementary management tools to achieve lasting benefits for watershed function while boosting social support for ltpbr and developing evidence-based information about conservation outcomes and climate resilience. Our overall goal is to help the BLM meet ecosystem restoration and resilience targets and advance the objectives of the restoration landscape funding. Through a science-based prioritization approach, we will contribute to collaborative efforts to implement the defend the core, grow the core framework, and create greater watershed resilience to drought, wildfire, and climate change to ensure wildlife populations have abundant and connected habitat and communities thrive. This proposal includes 1.4 FTE to support project management, including planning, implementation, strategic coordination, and contract management. Subawards to boise state university (BSU) and university of idaho (UI) will support collaborative work with TNC and BLM to develop science-based and exportable frameworks for supporting watershed and basin scale restoration priorities and for integrating monitoring at multiple scales (site-, drone-, and satellite-based) to provide long-term quantitative data for stream and riparian restoration outcomes and mesic persistence and resilience.