Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative (RMRI)?
The Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative is a stakeholder-driven collaborative aimed at increasing the resilience of our forests, wildlife habitats, communities, recreation opportunities, and water resources across all lands in the Rocky Mountains. 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 where a collective effort has the potential to make transformational changes in the health and resiliency of the ecosystem.
- What is RMRI trying to do?
The initiative in 2019 invited federal, state, local, private and non-profit partners from across Colorado to look across private and public lands at places where comprehensive management could make a significant difference in restoring forests and habitats; protecting communities; supporting recreation and tourism; and securing clean water for downstream users. • The group identified landscapes of southwestern Colorado, the central Front Range, and the I-70 corridor as the top priorities for a potential pilot project. • In December 2019, the Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative unanimously selected the Southwest Colorado Project to be the focus of its first efforts. • The Initiative is also exploring ways to engage with several other projects and issues identified in this process.
- Where and how did RMRI originate?
• Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen and the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) Chief Executive Officer Becky Humphries met at the 2019 NWTF Convention and Conservation Conference to discuss challenges in forest stewardship that impede fast-paced, large-scale critical landscape restoration. • Both NWTF and the USDA Forest Service agreed to convene a group of partners to see how, through shared stewardship, we could increase the pace and scale of stewardship work on a focused landscape. • The Rocky Mountain Region, specifically Colorado, was selected as a pilot due in part to the large number of headwaters in the state and Colorado’s record of collaborative work on the landscape.
- Why is this important and urgent?
Population growth, wildfires, and insects challenge our ability to maintain safe communities and to provide quality and reliable sources of water to support citizens, agriculture, and industry. • These threats also have significant impacts to forests, habitat, recreation, and tourism. • Our current efforts represent a fraction of the pace and scale needed to mitigate threats and their impacts.
- Is the U.S. Forest Service going to stop working in areas outside RMRI focal areas?
No, priority work occurring on National Forests across Colorado will continue. RMRI will strive to build upon innovations and success in the Region in addition to ongoing work.
- How is RMRI different than other collaborative programs?
The initiative is building on the success of many long-standing partnerships in Colorado such as the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, Forests to Faucets and Joint Chiefs. • This initiative will bring more hands and greater focus to the beneficial work these programs have been doing. • The initiative is showcasing an innovative way to implement shared stewardship. • The stakeholders hope it will serve as an inspiration and catalyst for projects in other parts of Colorado and the west.
For more information, visit https://restoringtherockies.org/
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