The Wilderness Society has launched a long-term research program for the Northern Rockies region of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Its goal is to provide a solid foundation of science, with key research products and tools, to make the case for ecology-based, large-scale land protection and to improve land management decisions in the region.
The research effort will focus on important ecological, economic and resource issues. Among the first projects in this effort is the examination of the Central Idaho ecosystem, one of the three largest core undeveloped ecosystems left in the Northern Rockies, along with the Greater Yellowstone and the Glacier National Park-Bob Marshall ecosystems. Of these, Central Idaho is the least studied and least understood.
Our researchers will examine where and how this ecosystem functions in order to identify the most important lands to protect and restore. Such information is vital if we are to conserve the ecosystem itself and to maintain connections for wildlife between Central Idaho and Yellowstone and Glacier-Bob Marshall ecosystems.
Specifically, The Wilderness Society will identify and examine:
- Areas that contain high quality habitat, rare or threatened species or areas with habitats not now represented in protected areas;
- The size and frequency of forest fires in their natural role in the ecosystem; and,
- The distribution of wildlife habitat and migration patterns for important wildlife species.
Taken together, these three areas of research will help us define a "greater ecosystem" in central Idaho and aid in the development of land management policies to more effectively sustain it. The research will provide benefits far beyond Idaho, as it will reveal the importance of wildlands to large-scale ecosystem functions and how to maximize that benefit.
For More Information
We have published a report supporting the first stage of analysis, "Roadless Areas: The Missing Link in Conservation. An Analysis of Biodiversity and Landscape Connectivity in the Northern Rockies."
