LaVA aims to promote forest diversity

When the Landscape Vegetation Analysis (LaVA) project was first conceived, it was understood by the United States Forest Service (USFS) something of this scale would require partnerships across multiple agencies. From other federal agencies, like Bureau of Land Management (BLM), to state agencies, like the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD). Katie Cheesbrough, the terrestrial habitat biologist for WGFD, is just one of several people involved in the project.

Cheesbrough is getting ready to complete five years in the Platte Valley as Saratoga’s habitat biologist. Before coming here, she was the wildlife biologist for the USFS in Douglas.

“With grad school and research and temporary positions, I’ve been in the biological field for quite a very long time,” said Cheesbrough.

According to Cheesbrough, the USFS was adamant about involving other agencies in the LaVA project from the very beginning. Cheesbrough and her supervisor had been at the Brush Creek-Hayden Ranger District office in Saratoga for a meeting when they were informed by Frank Romero of the upcoming projects.

“We were contacted from the very get go. My boss and I were at the forest service for another meeting and Frank Romero pulled us into the office to tell us that this was starting and that they wanted to coordinate with cooperators from the very beginning,” Cheesbrough said.

One of the difficulties the WGFD has when it comes to helping manage wildlife populations is that the agency doesn’t have much land they manage themselves and that means working with BLM, USFS and even private landowners. Coordinating these efforts in the past has often been difficult, but Cheesbrough is hoping LaVA can begin to make these cooperations between agencies easier in the future.

“Being able to get those projects in a timely fashion and to coordinate what’s going on across the border will be really helpful to us,” said Cheesbrough.

The WGFD, like other state and federal agencies, has its hoops to jump through when it comes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The stated intentions of NEPA include “to declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment” and “to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man.”

NEPA, despite its good intentions, can sometimes lead to delays in project implementation. LaVA, however, is a condition-based NEPA project meaning it gives the cooperating agencies more flexibility when it comes to decisions to respond to real-time conditions.

Cheesbrough’s focus within the WGFD is upon big game such as deer and elk and it is the same with her involvement in LaVA and why she is just one of many biologists involved in the project. When it comes to the forest, the state agency is hoping to be able to reestablish aspen communities that serve as protection for big game populations.

“Establishing some more age class diversity and community forest type diversity into the system is what we’d like to see. Those aspen communities are really important to a whole suite of animals as far as big game species are concerned,” Cheesbrough said.

Aspen stands are especially important when it comes to improving the populations of big game as they are used by does and cows to give birth and provide foraging areas. To allow these diverse community types to exist, however, requires natural disturbances. In the past, these disturbances have often come in the form of forest fires that remove the dead timber and allow for the growth of new vegetation.

“The Game and Fish is coming at this from a standpoint of forest management has changed over the years in such a way that there is a lot of fire prevention, for good reason. For communities and things like that, but it’s really changed the nature and the health of the forest because it hasn’t had these natural fire regimes that has caused the forest to age almost unnaturally. There’s not a mosaic of different age classes and different community types in the forest anymore,” said Cheesbrough.

LaVA is enlisting the use of multiple treatment options. One of these is prescribed burns and mechanical treatments. This would be a way of introducing disturbance into the system and helping to create diversity within the forest. Removing the dead and dying timber goes beyond just habitat, however. It also leads to accessibility within the forest, especially for hunters.

The multiple agencies involved in LaVA is important. Just as important is the input of the public. With LaVA covering over 300,000 acres of the MBNF, much of the land affected is public and public input is vital to the process.

“I think that’s why a lot of us live here, is the access to a lot of public land and a lot of opportunities on public land. If you want to continue to see certain wildlife and you enjoy the aspen communities, it’s important to think about how are we managing this,” Cheesbrough said.

Cheesbrough added, while LaVA will allow projects to happen closer to a real-time scale, it is still a complicated process. The reason for that is because all the agencies involved want to get the project right and give it as much consideration as possible.

“I think the whole idea of LaVA is to work towards a more healthy forest. Beetles are natural, they’re part of the system, but because our forests were in an unnatural state and everything was the same age class they were able to do some major devastation.”