20 Years: Time to Reflect and Reset

Creating a More Sustainable Future in the West

The Sonoran Institute began 20 years ago with the idea to bring to communities in western North America an approach to conservation being used successfully in the developing world. This approach, pioneered by World Wildlife Fund and other international conservation groups, is based on the conviction that effective and enduring conservation requires building positive relationships with the people who live next door.

When we established the Institute in 1990, community-based collaborative conservation was still a fairly novel idea in the West. Although there were notable exceptions, environmental groups here still very much relied on the “legislate and litigate” model of conservation. As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, I am proud to see that the approaches we helped pioneer have blossomed, and that almost everyone, conservation groups and public land managers alike, now embrace the importance of listening to neighbors, building strong relationships, and getting local people involved in creating solutions for their communities.

“As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, I am proud to see that the approaches we helped pioneer have blossomed.”

Until 2007, much of the focus in the West was about growth and housing development. As the population across the West skyrocketed and our economy became increasingly dependent on real estate development, there was a steady march to turn our ranches, open spaces, and wildlife habitat into subdivisions and ranchettes. The subsequent real estate collapse has been painful, leaving many of these developments as bare as the county coffers needed to support them. It is hard to underestimate the economic, ecological, and social costs of this boom and bust cycle.

The silver lining in the Great Recession and building bust is the opportunity it offers us to reflect, reset, and create a more sustainable future. Through the years, we’ve helped dispel the mythology that protecting the environment comes at the expense of jobs. Today, we are seeing a merger of conservation and economic development strategies happening in the West, with many more communities realizing that conservation and smart growth are important for their economic prosperity. By helping local governments plan and zone more effectively, promote transit, and protect working ranches, we can help them avoid the mistakes of the past and position themselves for a new economy based on knowledge and technology, rather than just building houses.

Preserving what is special about the West—our open space, wildlife, scenery, and vibrant, walkable downtowns—not only protects our quality of life but also attracts the human talent needed to build this new economy and bring prosperity back to our communities. This is our vision for a sustainable future in the West, and we look forward to working with you and our neighbors to help shape it.

Sincerely,

Luther Propst

Executive Director

Using Science to Protect Our National Parks

A national park’s protected status is defined by its borders, but its ecosystem is not. Wildlife roam across boundaries, and a park’s plants, soils, air, and water are all affected by outside influences. As the National Park Service (NPS) confronts ever-increasing human activity around the parks, along with other issues spanning from the spread of invasive species to the effects of climate change, it has begun to rely more heavily on science to inform and drive its management decisions.

The Institute is working closely with the NPS to help it better understand the status and trends of natural and cultural resources in and around park service units in the Greater Yellowstone and American Southwest regions. In the Yellowstone area, for example, the habitat information that the Institute is providing can help park managers work with surrounding land owners to keep critical areas accessible to migrating wildlife. At numerous parks in Arizona, the Institute is helping synthesize ecological research from the past century so officials can understand their park’s condition and plan appropriately. At Capulin Volcano National Monument in Des Moines, New Mexico, the Institute and NPS are studying the impact of potential development such as roads, wind farms, and houses on the monument’s scenic vista.

“It’s really refreshing working with the Sonoran Institute, because it brings a different perspective to the table. We’re focused in on our specific parks, whereas the Institute puts the parks in the context of the surrounding communities.”

Dr. Rob Bennetts  Program Manager
NPS Southern Plains Network

The National Park Service turns 100 in 2016. By helping it sharpen its eyes—on the ground, beyond its borders, and on the future—the Institute hopes to also help the NPS preserve our parks for the next 100 years and beyond. Read more about our partnership with the NPS at www.sonoraninstitute.org.

As part of its multifaceted collaboration with the NPS, the Institute is leading the development of two “virtual learning center” websites that communicate scientific information about national parks in the West. The web tools that the Institute is building support the learning center’s mission of “connecting parks, science, and people,” and its intended goal of building stronger relationships among scientists, helping disseminate project results, and supporting science-informed decision-making in the parks.

The Institute is also leading a collaborative effort to publish a suite of tools that can be easily adopted by the other virtual learning centers underway from Maine to Hawaii. To visit the virtual learning centers, go to: www.greateryellowstonescience.org or www.southwestlearning.org.

An Enduring Partnership

Western Lands and Communities is an enduring partnership between the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute.

For the past seven years, this joint venture has been working to shape growth, sustain cities, protect resources, and empower communities in the Intermountain West. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy is a leading resource for key issues concerning the use, regulation, and taxation of land. Providing high quality education and research, it strives to improve public dialogue and decisions about land policy.

As a private operating foundation, whose origins date to 1946, the Lincoln Institute seeks to inform decision-making through education, research, policy evaluation, demonstration projects, and the dissemination of information, policy analysis, and data through publications, its website, and other media. By bringing together scholars, practitioners, public officials, policymakers, journalists and involved citizens, the Lincoln Institute integrates theory and practice and provides a nonpartisan forum for multidisciplinary perspectives on public policy concerning land, both in the U.S. and internationally.

“We have a special relationship with the Sonoran Institute, and the joint venture is very much part of that. Issues concerning land and sustainability have only grown in importance, and we are proud to be engaged in this partnership.”

Kathryn J. Lincoln - Chair of the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

The roots of the Sonoran Institute—Lincoln Institute of Land Policy joint venture are in the management of state trust lands. Beginning in 2003, the two institutions collaborated on a 23-state database and collection of case studies. This work led to the publication of the Policy Focus Report, State Trust Lands in the West: Fiduciary Duty in a Changing Landscape.  Since then, the scope of our work together has broadened dramatically to include a wide variety of smart growth and land conservation issues. In 2009, the joint venture was formally named Western Lands and Communities to reflect this expanded focus. Among our many important initiatives is a focus on climate change as it relates to land use. This work resulted in the landmark Policy Focus Report, Planning for Climate Change in the West, published in early 2010.

“The Intermountain West is a key region of the country, with its breathtaking landscape, intense growth pressures, and its critical role in the future of the U.S.,” says Peter Pollock, Ronald Smith Fellow at the Lincoln Institute. “The Sonoran Institute mirrors our interests in both the sustainable development of the urban environment and the conservation of land and water resources. It combines thoughtful policy analysis with ‘boots on the ground’ activism that brings reality to our efforts.” Jim Holway is the director of Western Lands and Communities. Prior to joining the Sonoran Institute, Jim directed the Sustainability Partnership at Arizona State University and served as assistant director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

“The ability to plan out years ahead is the powerful advantage that working with the Lincoln Institute gives us,” Jim says. “The stability of the Lincoln Institute’s mission and funding commitment, combined with its enormous expertise and broad perspective, allows us to do strategic thinking and long-term capacity building on a scale that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.”

Western Lands and Communities is currently leading planning initiatives associated with the recent phenomenon of abandoned and “premature” subdivisions in the wake of the housing collapse and recession, and is engaged with other partners on large-landscape conservation and regional collaboration efforts. The joint venture “con­tinues to look toward the future for the most pressing challenges facing the Intermountain West,” says Armando Carbonell, chairman of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Lincoln Institute. Read more about Western Lands and Communities and see our reports at www.sonoraninstitute.org and www.lincolninst.edu.

Renewable Energy in the West

From sunny Arizona to windy Wyoming, the push is on to take advantage of the West’s abundant renewable energy resources. State mandates for increased renewable power production, combined with federal stimulus funding incentives, have led to hundreds of fast-track proposals for renewable energy generation and transmission projects throughout the West.

The Sonoran Institute has been deeply involved in helping evaluate proposals for solar development in Arizona. More recently, we have begun assisting with proposals for transmission installations in Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

“As a Westwide organization, we’re always looking out for land uses that could significantly affect western landscapes,” says John Shepard, Sonoran Institute senior adviser. “Renewable energy development has jumped to the forefront of land uses with potentially profound impacts.”

While the benefits of renewable power are clear, its negative aspects cannot be ignored. Solar energy facilities require vast tracts of land, at least 2,000 acres for utility-scale projects. Massive wind turbines inevitably transform familiar views.

“Determining suitable sites, understanding the tradeoffs, and hopefully minimizing the impacts are things that the Sonoran Institute does well.”

John Shepard - Sonoran Institute Senior Adviser

New transmission lines will cut through hundreds of miles of terrain, creating local impacts all along the way.

Shepard praises the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for proactively identifying more than 600,000 acres throughout the West where renewable energy could be developed with minimal environmental impact. The Institute also actively supports the Arizona BLM office’s innovative pilot project to look at potential sites—public or private—on previously “disturbed” lands (i.e., once used for farming, mining, landfills, etc.).

Meanwhile, with state and federal agencies and local communities grappling with how to best evaluate the stacks of proposed fast-track projects, the Institute’s diverse land use expertise is particularly valuable.

“Determining suitable sites, understanding the tradeoffs, and hopefully minimizing the impacts are things that the Sonoran Institute does well,” Shepard says. “This issue cuts across federal land, state trust land, and private land. One of our strengths is that we’re uniquely positioned to talk about siting issues on all different types of land ownerships.”

For more information on renewable energy development in the West, visit www.sonoraninstitute.org.

One solar project that the Institute endorsed early on shows that smart siting can fulfill renewable energy’s “clean power” potential. The Solana project, being built by Abengoa Solar near Gila Bend, AZ, is located on private, disturbed land, is close to a major market, and will use less water than the farm that preceded it. The 280-megawatt project is scheduled to begin operation in 2013.