Working Lands for Wildlife
(³)’s&Բ; “” section of its website provides digital resources valuable for agroforestry practitioners and consultants working on landscape-scale conservation projects.
The centerpiece is the , an interactive mapping application that allows users to compare historical imagery from the 1950s with modern imagery (2014-2023) across Western landscapes from the Great Plains to the Pacific Coast. This temporal analysis capability is particularly useful for agroforestry practitioners to assess landscape changes and identify optimal sites for tree-based interventions.
The Landscape Explorer highlights three key landscape changes relevant to agroforestry planning: woody plant encroachment by species like eastern redcedar and pinyon-juniper into native rangelands, cropland expansion impacting wildlife habitat and grazing lands, and urban sprawl affecting open spaces. Understanding these patterns helps practitioners identify where agroforestry systems could provide ecological and economic benefits.
The offers maps, calculators, and charts that help identify intact landscapes, assess threats, and track productivity changes over time. These tools can quantify forage losses from tree encroachment, identify optimal locations for treatments to control invasive species, assess how water sources perform during drought conditions, and evaluate wildfire probability based on grass production patterns.
These data-driven tools enable agroforestry practitioners to make evidence-based decisions about where to implement tree-based systems, how to integrate them with existing land uses, and how to design interventions that address specific landscape challenges while maintaining agricultural productivity and wildlife habitat.
CRWFA Farmer Forum
(CRWFA) offers a for members to learn more about farming and conservation practices directly from other members. For more information: CRWFA.info@gmail.com or (802) 369-3167.