The Colorado Plateau’s biological diversity ranges across a number of human boundaries. The vast Plateau (130,000 square miles) is a mixing pot of administrative forces: 12 Indian tribes (presently tribal lands comprise ~24% of the Plateau), four states (Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico), 34 counties, 225 communities, 26 national parks, monuments, national historic sites, and recreation areas, 15 national forests and 10 Bureau of Land Management districts (federal land comprises 55% of the Plateau). As a result conservation issues such as water and forest management, protecting and recovering populations of imperiled species, and climate change’s effects on human water use, agriculture and wild ecosystems span multiple jurisdictional boundaries. These are landscape-scale problems, demanding collaboration across human boundaries.
On the Plateau and elsewhere Native American tribes are a rising force in natural resource management, largely due to hard fought gains around cultural sovereignty and advances in management capacity. Across the Colorado Plateau tribes are influential stakeholders on critical conservation issues such as water management, renewable energy development/mineral resources and endangered species recovery. Moreover, they maintain a culture whose traditional knowledge has co-evolved with these landscapes over millennia.
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Messages to Members from Chapter Presidents - Past & Present Work Groups are the Chapter's alternative to standing subcommittees. Any member of the Chapter may intitiate one. |
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Please send information about other meetings and workshops of general interest to members of the Chapter to the Colorado Plateau Chapter Office |
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BACKGROUND
The Colorado Plateau’s biological diversity ranges across a number of human boundaries. The vast Plateau (130,000 square miles) is a mixing pot of administrative forces: 12 Indian tribes (presently tribal lands comprise ~24% of the Plateau), four states (Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico), 34 counties, 225 communities, 26 national parks, monuments, national historic sites, and recreation areas, 15 national forests and 10 Bureau of Land Management districts (federal land comprises 55% of the Plateau). As a result conservation issues such as water and forest management, protecting and recovering populations of imperiled species, and climate change’s effects on human water use, agriculture and wild ecosystems span multiple jurisdictional boundaries. These are landscape-scale problems, demanding collaboration across human boundaries. On the Plateau and elsewhere Native American tribes are a rising force in natural resource management, largely due to hard fought gains around cultural sovereignty and advances in management capacity. Across the Colorado Plateau tribes are influential stakeholders on critical conservation issues such as water management, renewable energy development/mineral resources and endangered species recovery. Moreover, they maintain a culture whose traditional knowledge has co-evolved with these landscapes over millennia. |
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