Invasive Plants and Their Response to Energy Development

Abstract

This book provides a vision for landscape conservation that elected officials, industry representatives, natural resource managers, conservation groups, and the public can use to safeguard our wildlife heritage while securing our energy future. I conceived of this book in 2005 while conducting research inWyoming’s Powder River Basin, where we first documented the cumulative impacts of energy development on sage-grouse. Since then, although myriad studies have demonstrated cumulative impacts of energy development on populations of imperiled species in prairie, shrubland, and forested landscapes throughout the West, no book-length synthesis has been published. This void in the conservation literature at first seemed ironic because energy independence is a major issue that will be debated for years to come. Perhaps the void is best explained by its recent emergence; indeed, the peer-reviewed science on energy and wildlife impacts has been published in just the last 10 years. This book synthesizes the pertinent scientific information, and the Literature Cited is listed at the end of the book to reduce redundancy between chapters. Tradeoffs between energy development and conservation are unfolding before our eyes, and the intention of this book is to help policymakers turn science into solutions to this pressing issue. The right science is a rallying point that allows conservation partners to focus on their similarities rather than their differences. This book speaks to a philosophy of science-based conservation that seeks to understand how a system works and then to use that knowledge to develop solutions. In part I, we frame the issue, describe the major types of extraction, and quantify the pace and extent of current and future development. In part II, we provide the biological foundation for understanding cumulative impacts, synthesize the biological response of wildlife to development, discuss energy infrastructure as a conduit for the spread of invasive species, and compare impacts of alternative energy with those of conventional development. Finally, in part III we call for a paradigm shift away from random opportunism to broad-scale and strategic planning and implementation of conservation in priority landscapes.We show how science can help identify landscapes that support viable caribou populations, delineate core areas for sage-grouse, and forecast future development scenarios to aid in conservation design. We champion community-based landscape conservation as a solution formaintaining large and intact habitats that support healthy wildlife populations. Most importantly, we weave solutions into the social fabric of communities and rural ways of life, for the will of the people of the West, not its governments, will ultimately determine our conservation future. We also provide readers with a photo essay of themajor types of extraction and their associated footprints. Many readers have not experienced firsthand the density of roads, transmission and seismic lines, traffic, noise, and other forms of human disturbance that accompany development in otherwise small and traditional ranching communities. Readers unfamiliar with energy development may be surprised by the extent of the impact associated with extractive activities. Our photo essay illustrates the magnitude of cumulative impacts of energy development facing mule deer, pronghorn, caribou, sage-grouse, and other western icons. Aerial photos of development impress on the reader that impacts from an individual oil well xiv Preface or wind turbine pale in comparison to multiplicative impacts of development that accumulate across the broader landscape. The text that accompanies the photo essay conveys why the scale of conservation must be analogous to that of development if we are to maintain the large and open spaces on which wildlife depends.