Assess condition and trend of the region’s sagebrushsteppe ecosystems

• Use best available data to assess the current condition of vegetation communities, wildlife populations, and disturbance regimes

• Asses the future risks and trends including annual grass invasions, juniper expansion, climate change, energy development and other issues

 Assess Management Practices

• Assess historical land use and trends in recent management (where and how much has been done)

• Review current science on common management practices

• Identify gaps in our knowledge as priorities for research

• Map areas of highest and lowest likelihood for successful application for specific management practices

 Synthesize conservation priorities and identify strategies

• Bring together many the organizations influential in land management in the region and work towards establishing common priorities and strategies

• Synthesize priority areas for conservation from multiple existing plans

• Using assessments of condition, trend, and current science on management practices to collectively identify both spatial and non-spatial strategies for implementation of conservation in, around and between priority landscapes

Provide a reference on the region’s sagebrush steppe

• Produce a summary for a general audience for education and outreach

• Produce a technical reference for managers and decision makers that helps document the needs and basis for project decisions

• Produce and make publically available a set of maps and data for use in planning projects and to be used adaptively to assess regional progress.

A regional assessment of conditions and site specific management strategies is currently lacking in the High Desert.

The Sage Steppe Assessment and Conservation Approach will document the condition and threats to sagebrush steppe in the region based on the currently available data from multiple partners. While the State Wildlife Plans and other planning efforts from The Nature Conservancy (the Columbia Plateau Ecoregional Assessment), Joint Ventures (Important Bird Areas), and others have identified priority areas for conservation, they have not identified where to apply specific management practices to achieve the conservation and management goals they set. The Sagebrush Cooperative’s Assessment will provide the necessary site specific analysis to guide conservation and management actions to implement the State Wildlife Plans and other agency and non-governmental planning and within the region’s sagebrush steppe ecosystem. A component of the analysis of current condition will include the management actions undertaken over the last decade. Comparing the threats, priorities and the current management will help to identify how well our current management is aligned with those threats, priorities and current scientific understanding of management outcomes.