Sky Island Alliance
Climate Change Challenge: Bigger, hotter fires
Grant Award: $240,865; Year Awarded: 2014
Severe fires followed by intense monsoon precipitation alter streams, springs and entire watersheds in rapid and sometimes catastrophic ways throughout the Sky Island Region of southern Arizona. This project combines site-specific strategies that protect and rehabilitate key habitats and corridors for wildlife and pollinators with watershed-scale strategies that moderate the transition of fire-affected ecosystems while maintaining essential functions. Through installation of erosion-control structures at the tops of high fire-prone watersheds using manual techniques and trained volunteers, Sky Island Alliance will rehabilitate high-priority springs and riparian wildlife habitat degraded by post-fire erosion.