In response to large, severe wildfires across the western US, federal initiatives have been enacted to increase the pace, scale, and quality of ecological restoration in fire dependent forests. To address uncertainty and controversy in agreement among specific restoration prescriptions on national forest land, several initiatives adopt a collaborative adaptive management strategy wherein monitoring data can inform stakeholder input into future management actions. It is unclear, however, how such approaches may change restoration outcomes. This paper assess the extent to which these collaborative strategies impact restoration outcomes that were implemented as part of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) in ponderosa pine-dominated forests of the Colorado
Front Range.
Photo Credit: Karina Puikkonen