Grant Funding for Landowners & Businesses: Habitat Restoration

The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance/BANWR Partnership for Habitat Restoration project will achieve multiple habitat improvement goals in BANWR’s Masked Bobwhite Habitat Management Area. It will also increase social connectivity between the Refuge, Tucson groups, and Altar Valley landowners who actively seek habitat improvements as they make their living in a multi-jurisdiction grasslands watershed. The project’s three integrated Phases will be undertaken in tandem for the12-18 month duration, because they anchor and provide ecological support to one another’s role in watershed processes. The Phases also provide a platform for multiple levels and intensities of volunteer involvement, and a range of training and outreach opportunities.

At least 5 miles of the Puertocito channel itself and 25 square miles of habitat that include the masked bobwhite core recovery area, will receive concurrent treatment at appropriate scales, giving each channel reach and phase of the project a higher chance of success. In the small and larger scale erosion control Phases described above, the scale of structure and effort matches the size of the channel itself, from one foot to a hundred feet wide, and from several inches to several feet deep. Multiple ecological processes and effects that now threaten Refuge resources and working landscapes at once require multiple types of integrated ecological and social responses. The project is also consistent with the goals outlined in the Refuge’s most recent Habitat Management Plan and AVCA’s Watershed Restoration Plan.

It employs experienced landowners and agency personnel, eager and capable volunteers, and proven restoration methods adopted by FWS, NRCS, USDA, Arizona State Land Department, Pima County and the University of Arizona. This project represents a progressive set of active partnerships with multiple social and ecological benefits. Remnant sacaton flats at the upper end of the 600,000 acre Altar Valley watershed, three overloaded gabions draining the area, and a connected masked bobwhite habitat recovery area that requires its own type of treatment provide opportunities for ecological mitigation, monitoring and learning, and for a diverse set of social experiences at the same time. The three-phase Partnership for Restoration Project synthesizes efforts at multiple scales through several social groups that include students and other youth who contribute different kinds of approaches to, and knowledge of a place.

Ecologically, the project responds to an integrated set of watershed processes that will support one another most effectively if treated at the same time, giving the entire project the highest probability of success. This approach has the support of the FWS Partners, NRCS, Game and Fish and other agencies, and has also attracted the attention of local businesses that hope to build on the accomplishments of this kind of collaborative habitat restoration in the future. By establishing a foundation of trust among many different groups over time, and by intensifying its outreach and restoration efforts recently, the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance is well-positioned to contribute to addressing resource concerns shared by those who live and work in the region and will in the future.