Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson

Matt Cahill - A Deep Dive into the Sagebrush Sea

Sep 26, 2023

01:07:03

Matt Cahill is the Sagebrush Sea Program Director for the Nature Conservancy. Based out of Bend, Oregon, Matt leads all of TNC’s critical work restoring, managing, and protecting sagebrush habitat across six western states. This is a huge and complex effort– it combines protection and policy work with ground-breaking restoration advances, public and industry partnerships, and local community projects. But as you’ll hear in this conversation, Matt is optimistically leaning into the challenge and making great strides to protect this uniquely Western ecosystem.

To give you some context into the vastness of North America’s sagebrush ecosystem, it spans 150 million acres and is home to 350 rare, threatened, and endangered species. Since 1998, 14 million acres of sagebrush ecosystems have been lost, and currently, we’re losing approximately one million acres to invasive species, catastrophic wildfires, development, improper grazing, and climate change. 70% of the Sagebrush Sea is found on public lands, so efforts to protect, manage, and restore the ecosystem are dependent on creative, action-oriented public-private partnerships. Again, Matt is leading a huge and complex effort!

In this episode, we start our conversation by discussing why the Sagebrush Sea is important, and why even people who live far from the ecosystem should care about it. We discuss the history of the threats to sagebrush and do a deep dive into the specific threat of cheatgrass– a true scourge on the landscapes of the West. We discuss the ecology of sagebrush, how TNC measures success when it comes to protecting such a fragile ecosystem, and the importance of partnering with ranchers. We talk about the efficacy of for-profit approaches to restoration, collaboration with government agencies, and specific cutting-edge approaches to restoration. Matt also explains his career trajectory that led him from the East Coast to becoming obsessed with sagebrush, and he offers several great book recommendations.

Be sure to check out the episode notes for links to everything we discuss, including a few videos and writings by Matt that will provide even more context into this nuanced issue. Thanks to Matt and his team for all of their hard work, and thank you for listening. Hope you enjoy.

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Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/matt-cahill

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Colorado chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Guided by science and grounded by decades of collaborative partnerships, The Nature Conservancy has a long-standing legacy of achieving lasting results to create a world where nature and people thrive.

On the fourth Tuesday of every month throughout 2023, Mountain & Prairie will be delving into conversations with a wide range of The Nature Conservancy’s leaders, partners, collaborators, and stakeholders, highlighting the myriad of conservation challenges, opportunities, and solutions here in the American West.

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy’s impactful work in Colorado and around the world, visit www.nature.org/colorado

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TOPICS DISCUSSED:

3:30 - Of the Sagebrush Sea
7:45 - Why sagebrush matters
10:30 - The state of the Sagebrush Sea and how it got there
15:15 - Cheatgrass’s impact on the Sagebrush Sea
23:30 - TNC’s Sagebrush Sea program
26:45 - Exploring the restoration aspect of Matt’s work
33:15 - The restoration timeline for sagebrush regions
35:30 - Measuring restoration success
39:00 - The management portion of Matt’s work
41:30 - Matt’s success stories of collaborating with ranchers
46:00 - The land protection (acquisition, easement, etc.) portion of Matt’s work
49:15 - Evaluating the for-profit wing of conservation of sage grouse habitat
43:15 - Discussing TNC’s collaboration across its own programs as well as with government land managers
57:00 - How Matt ended up an expert in sagebrush biomes when he grew up on the East Coast
1:00:30 - Matt’s book recommendations
1:04:00 - Matt’s parting words of wisdom