Program aims to restore Nevada's rangeland

Millions of acres are charred by wildfire. Millions more covered by invading grass. Elsewhere, pinyon-juniper trees are creeping downhill, overrunning a landscape that should be dominated by sagebrush. Nevada's rangeland, simply put, is in trouble. "We've got some pretty big problems on the range," said Lee Turner, a habitat specialist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife. Turner is heading up a new state program to restore Nevada's range, crucial to ranchers and as habitat for wildlife. Born as part of the "war on cheatgrass" declared in 2007 by Gov. Jim Gibbons and the governors of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, the Nevada Partners for Conservation and Development program is designed to build on plans already developed by federal land managers and to achieve large-scale restoration of both public and privately owned range. One of the biggest threats to rangeland is posed by cheatgrass, a non-native annual grass introduced to America through contaminated seed in the 1890s. Cheatgrass, first found in Nevada in 1906, now dominates at least a third of the 48 million acres of Nevada managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Cheatgrass often takes over land charred by wildfire, and in a troubling cycle, the highly flammable grass is prone to fuel future fires once established. Studies show it is 500 times as likely to burn as areas covered with native perennial grasses and sagebrush...more