Rocky Mountain Restoration Initative
The Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative is a stakeholder-driven collaborative aimed at increasing the resilience of our forests, habitat, communities, recreation opportunities, and water resources across all lands in the Rocky Mountains.
What is The Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative?
The initiative is taking the groundbreaking approach of tasking a diverse group of partners from Colorado to identify important landscapes, shared interests and potential strategies. We believe that a collective effort has the potential to make transformational changes in the health and resiliency of the ecosystem.
Co-convened by the National Wild Turkey Federation and the U.S. Forest Service, RMRI mobilizes over 40 partners across Colorado to deliver cross-boundary solutions to three priority landscapes that were selected through our stakeholder driven process. RMRI partners are united by our four shared values: Restore forests and wildlife habitat, prepare communities for wildfire, provide sustainable, accessible recreation and tourism, and ensure clean and secure water.
Why is The Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative needed?
We have approached a critical junction between population growth and wildfires. Catastrophic wildfires are due to a variety of factors, including dense, unhealthy forests coupled with drought and increasingly warmer weather linked to climate change. These conditions create wildfires that are becoming larger and more difficult to control. Concurrently, the number of people living in or near the wildland-urban interface is increasing and continuing to grow. What started as a forest health problem has now become a critical public health and safety problem.
For more information, visit https://restoringtherockies.org/
The Mission
Increasing the resilience of our forests, wildlife habitats, communities, recreation opportunities, and water resources across all lands in the Rocky Mountains.
The Vision
Embrace Shared Stewardship principles by building a collaborative foundation to address challenges and identify opportunities and potential solutions leading to measurable and scalable results in the restoration of critical landscapes in the Rocky Mountains.
RMRI Values
RMRI partners engage in activities that support these four values:
Communities | Clean Water | Forests & Wildlife | Recreation
RMRI Landscapes
RMRI has chosen to initially focus resources on three landscapes having the greatest impact on Colorado to reach a scale comparable to the needs on the ground.
Southwest Colorado
RMRI’s marquee project working to restore over 300,000 acres of public and private lands in priority areas across their 750,000 acre project area.
Upper Arkansas
Additional RMRI landscape working to restore 30,000-45,000 acres of public and private lands in priority areas across their 900,000 acre project area.
Upper South Platte
Additional RMRI landscape working to restore 150,000 acres of public and private lands in priority areas across their 885,000 acre watershed.
For more information, visit https://restoringtherockies.org/
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