Events

2012

Actions taken since our March meeting

August 2012 Conference Call with GBC
The GBC had scheduled a meeting for late summer of 2012 to plan another conference for the Consortium to be held in late 2012. The conference was postponed until early 2013 and the meeting was delayed until fall of 2012. There will however, be a major conference addressing environmental issues of the of the Great Basin, now scheduled for early 2013. A outline for the program will be available soon, and we urge members of the GBEP to consider presenting a paper.

March 4, 2012, Meeting of the leaders of the GBEP in Washington DC
This meeting was held in connection with the meeting of the land Grants APLU Organization in Washington, DC. The purpose was to inform the leaders about the new proposal which we had generated on cheatgrass, “Assessing Landscape Scale Cheatgrass Fuel Load Reduction for Protection of Great Basin Ecosystems and Wildland-Urban Interface Using Late Season Grazing.” Members representing the universities were briefed and agreed to present the proposal to their legislators during their regular Hill visits. The proposal had been prepared by Johnson and the staff at the University of Nevada Reno with input from the four other land grant universities that are a part of the GBEP.

2011

January

Jan. 20 Meeting Notes

March 2011, Washington, DC Meeting
At this meeting the changes that were being made at the University f Nevada Reno were discussed. There was concern about proceeding with the organization of the NGOs, Federal agencies, the state environmental and agriculture agencies and the private sector, as was going forward in Nevada and Utah. There was agreement that the other states would delay the organization of these meetings until the situation at the University of Nevada Reno had settled down. We also discussed the situation for new funding and the fact that there did not seem to be much traction for the broad group of themes put forward in the GBEP. It was decided to narrow the themes for the next presentation to the Congress and federal agencies.

November 7-9, Great Basin Consortium Conference
The Great Basin Consortium (GBC) conference was the first event for the GBC. The conference was held in Reno Nevada on the Campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. Approximately 200 scientists and managers attended. The conference program is available here.

November 8 meeting of the GBEP at the GBC conference

At this meeting the discussion was on where to go for new funding for the GBEP. At that time we knew that the earmarks were not available as a funding mechanism. We decided to put forward a proposal for one of the six themes of the GBEP: wildfires. The University of Nevada, Reno participants were given the lead in preparing the proposal, which was to be presented to federal agencies and Congressional representatives from the five states during the next spring. The idea of the proposal was to emphasize cheatgrass grazing as had been tried at the Gund Ranch the previous year with much success. The concept was to take the experience at the Gund Ranch and experiment with its success across the Great Basin.

2010

December

Dec. 7 Meeting Notes

November

October

August Meeting Documents

Update
Acting Commission Meeting Notes
Integrated Cheatgrass Die-off Project GBRI
Combating Invasive Species Funding Ask
Memo to Chuck Gay
Western Governors’ Association Policy Resolution 10-4: Combating Invasive Species

16th Wildland Shrub Symposium May 2010
GBEP Meeting Notes January 2010

March 2010, Washington, DC Meeting
This meeting was held with the representatives of the land grant institutions at their Washington DC APLU meeting at which the land grants put forward their proposal for funding to the Congress. The subject of our discussions was funding for the GBEP. We knew that the current grant was about to be completed. It was decided to ask for an extension of the award to permit time to seek other funding after the University of Nevada , Reno staff sought and were awarded an extension of the award.