Theses and Dissertations Collection

Western forests have become fuels-laden due to decades of wildfire suppression policy. Fuels-laden forests are now stressed by both the direct and indirect effects of climate change including increased severity and number of wildfires and increasing insect and disease outbreaks due to rising temperatures and drought. Longer and more severe fire seasons are then threatening humans in the expanding wildland urban interface. However, the current American environmental political structure has created gridlock, making forest management policy implementation difficult. In order to address this complex environmental problem, a “next generation” approach to forest management was introduced. The Bioenergy Alliance Network of the Rockies is a multi-faceted Coordinated Agriculture Project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture to address the most recent outbreak of bark-beetles in the western United States by harvesting beetle-killed trees to improve forest health and provide a renewable source of energy. The innovative approach will have the most potential to avoid gridlock in the wildland urban interface where social considerations outweigh ecological concerns.