USEE Member Taking a Different Approach to Climate Change

The Utah Chapter of the Nature Conservancy (and USEE Institutional Member) was featured in the Salt Lake Tribune for its plans to use its Dugout Ranch as "a laboratory for understanding how climate change is affecting Utah and for solutions on easing its impacts."

The laboratory, featured dubbed the Canyonlands Research Center, "would shift its focus from the discussion of whether climate change is a problem to more practical considerations: How can ranchers, water districts and other natural resource managers best cope with the changes under way -- changes that affect everything from forests, streams and range?"

This is exciting news as the Nature Conservancy is working actively find solutions and adaptions to issues that Utah will have to deal with in the future resulting from climate change. "The work already has begun, with the Nature Conservancy's Utah Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment. The first-of-its-kind project in the state involves identifying and mapping plants, animals and ecological systems thought to be most vulnerable to changes in climate"

Read the entire article by Judy Fahys here: Nature Conservancy Lauches Climate Change Research Site

Dugout Ranch will be the site of the Canyonlands Research Center.
Photo courtesy of Tom Till