From a Bird to a Biome: Exploring the Sage Grouse Initiative's Role in Defending and Growing Sagebrush Core Areas

The Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI) administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has served as a primary delivery mechanism for Farm Bill investments in voluntary conservation of private rangelands in the western U.S. for fifteen years. Consistent with interagency efforts to extend conservation beyond sage-grouse to the entire sagebrush biome, the SGI has evolved to focus on conservation actions that benefit wildlife by addressing complex ecosystem problems undermining the resilience of working lands. Recent development of the Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) provides a common framework to coordinate the efforts of many partners invested in saving the biome's last remaining intact sagebrush ecosystems. In this forum paper, we explore the history of the SGI's strategic conservation on private lands relative to the SCD and reflect on how it could be used to improve future conservation delivery. From 2010 to 2022, NRCS contributed $423USD million in Farm Bill funds through SGI to easements, conifer removal, and invasive annual grass management with the shared goal of defending and growing Core, with most SGI actions occurring in Core (6–14%) and Growth (an additional 40–57%). The SCD's ecological integrity scores suggest that SGI-funded conifer removal has either reversed (7) or halted (2) the degradation attributable to conifer encroachment in nine focal landscapes. Concentrating conifer removals together was 20% more effective at restoring Core and Growth than the 5% gains realized among scattered, isolated treatments. Our evaluation also shows that invasive annuals are undermining the integrity of initial SGI investments and warrant more attention to defend and grow Core. Embracing the SCD could help the SGI more effectively achieve desired wildlife outcomes given the biological relevance of Cores to sage-grouse and sagebrush-obligate songbirds.