Exploring Firescape: Staff and Stakeholder Attitudes Toward Fire Restoration Practices and Managing Change on the Coronado National Forest

Abstract

Changing climates and anthropogenic disturbances have caused ecosystems to begin to shift across the US. In response, land management agencies are increasingly examining their role in managing their resources in the context of rapid change and potentially widespread ecosystem transformations. Climate change, land-use changes, and historic fire suppression have led to greater size and severity of wildfires, leading to negative high-severity fire effects on the landscape. Planning landscape level actions to respond to these conditions through the National Environmental Policy Act and other Federal guidance requires a deep understanding of how staff and stakeholders view ecosystem change and resilience. To assess these views, we administered an electronic survey to 182 stakeholders of Coronado National Forest; semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 staff.Although there has been increasing recognition of the importance of fire for different ecosystems, land managers still face challenges in both planning requirements and implementation of landscape scale fire restoration plans. On the Coronado National Forest, our research showed a growing acceptance of ecosystem change among stakeholders and general agreement between the general public and land managers on management priorities. However, there is still room for improvement when it comes to communication and public engagement, monitoring metrics, and alignment between research and practice.