About the Gateway
The Sagebrush Conservation Gateway
This website highlights 20 peer-reviewed articles published in 2024 in Rangeland Ecology & Management. Together, these articles and related resources, along with researcher interviews and several presentations from the 2024 Society for Range Management conference, delve into the science of how, where and why we are deploying the Sagebrush Conservation Design to conserve the sagebrush biome. Learn more about the SCD and the special issue of Rangeland Ecology & Management below.
Photo: Ken Miracle
The Sagebrush Conservation Design
In 2022, an unprecedented partnership of experts with diverse backgrounds and disciplinary expertise came together to leverage new mapping technologies and develop a biome-wide approach to conserving the West's sagebrush sea.
The Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) identifies the best remaining ecologically intact sagebrush areas. The SCD is an adaptive, biome-wide tool to identify and address landscape-level threats by supporting the strategic allocation of conservation effort and resources. These threats include invasive annual grass, wildfire, expanding conifers, and human development, all of which impact a diverse suite of land uses, values, and ecosystem services ranging from wildlife habitats to livestock forage and carbon storage.
Photo: USDA-NRCS
Photo: Jeremy Roberts
The Rangeland Ecology & Management Special Issue
Building off of the SCD, experts from across the sagebrush biome collaborated on a new body of science collected in a special issue of Rangeland Ecology & Management published in 2024.
These 20 peer-reviewed articles provide an actionable path forward for conservation in the sagebrush biome by providing scientists and land managers with targeting tools to help with planning, implementing, and monitoring conservation actions to defend and grow Core Sagebrush Areas.
Together, these articles and the tools and guidance they provide give us reasons to be hopeful for the future by providing real, evidence-based examples of effective sagebrush conservation and improved conservation delivery.
Photo: Tom Koerner/USFWS