By Alan Barton, NMFWRI Director –
In October, NMFWRI hosted a workshop on the Highlands University campus with our Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes (SWERI) partners from Northern Arizona University and Colorado State University. This has been an annual tradition dating back to 2018, and we take turns hosting this event in each of the three states. Each October, the leadership from the three institutes meets to share information on our projects, coordinate our activities, and develop guidelines for our shared governance. These workshops have proven valuable in building our alliance, and conversations at the events have led to many cross-SWERI collaborations and program-focused working groups.
Together, the SWERIs employ over 80 professional staff who bring a range of knowledge and skills to our partnership. Each institute produces its own annual work plan, and has its own areas of expertise. Working together, we can draw on this wealth of talent to enhance our work in each of our states, and also to develop tools, trainings and informational materials that reach a broader audience across the Southwestern and Rocky Mountain regions. Our focus is on place-based projects that have a broad impact.
The SWERI bring expertise in various aspects of adaptive management, including monitoring to produce databases on ecological conditions, geographical information systems (GIS) to provide spatial coordination of management priorities, collaboration to organize cooperative management across large landscapes and property boundaries, human dimensions to understand how communities respond to adaptive management, and forest operations to promote improved practices that result in healthier forests.
Coordinating our activities across program areas infuses greater creativity, innovation and practicality into our work, so that we can produce and provide information and tools to managers, landowners and practitioners that lead to better outcomes on the ground.