Carli Kierstead – Wyoming Forests and the Work of Keeping Water Flowing

Oct 31, 2025

Carli Kierstead, the Forest Program Director for The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming, dives deep into the intricate relationship between Wyoming's forests and water supply. She shares her insights on the evolution of forest management amidst challenges like beetle outbreaks and climate change. Carli introduces the innovative concept of snowtography, explaining its role in monitoring snowpack and enhancing water resilience. Her personal journey and emphasis on building trust in conservation highlight the importance of collaboration for a sustainable future.

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INSIGHT

Compounding Climate Threats To Forests

Wyoming's forests face interacting threats: warming, drought, insects, disease, and increased wildfire.
These compounded impacts make proactive, tailored management essential to maintain forest resilience.

INSIGHT

Forest As Critical Headwaters

Wyoming's high-country forests supply and regulate water for four major North American basins.
These headwaters store snow and provide downstream water used by millions across the West.

INSIGHT

Monetizing Forest Water Services

TNC valued Wyoming forest water-related services at about $2 billion per year.
That figure is conservative but highlights forests' outsized economic value beyond timber.

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Carli Kierstead is the Forest Program Director for The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming, where she leads efforts to understand and restore some of the West's most critical—and often overlooked—ecosystems. From beetle kill and wildfire to drought, Wyoming's forests face a range of challenges that ripple far beyond the state's borders. These high-country forests are the headwaters of several major river basins, providing water to millions of people across the American West.

In this conversation, Carli and I dig into the past, present, and future of Western forests—how management philosophies have evolved over the decades, what's threatening their health today, and what can be done to make them more resilient in a changing climate. We talk about her team's groundbreaking work using snowtography—a deceptively simple but powerful way to study how forest structure affects snowpack and water supply—and how those findings could help guide future restoration across the Colorado River Basin.

Carli also shares her personal journey from growing up in San Diego to finding her calling in Wyoming's wide-open landscapes, her insights on collaboration and trust-building in conservation, and a few book recommendations that shaped her path. It's a hopeful, science-grounded conversation about water, forests, and how collaboration can shape a more resilient future for the West.

Thanks for listening, hope you enjoy!

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Carli Kierstead
Wyoming forests + TNC
Snowtography short film
Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/carli-kierstead/

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with the Colorado chapter of The Nature Conservancy and TNC chapters throughout the Western United States. 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.

During the last week of every month throughout 2025, 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 and beyond.

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy's impactful work in the West and around the world, visit www.nature.org

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TOPICS DISCUSSED:

2:34 – Intro and Wyoming forest health
7:16 – Beetle issues
8:30 – Why forest health?
12:35 – Economic benefit of forests
16:28 – Wyoming's claim to water
17:10 – Snowtography
23:18 – Lessons from the snow
27:33 – On the ground impact
33:53 – How it scales
40:42 – Relationship building
46:08 – The tendrils of the Colorado River Basin
46:46 – Carli's environment obsession
52:01 – How to build a relationship
55:10 – Book recs
58:38 – Last thoughts

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