The Great Basin is wedged between the Sierra Nevada Mountain range on the West, the Wasatch Branch of the Rocky Mountains on the East, and the Snake River on the North. The rough size of the Great Basin is about 900 miles North to South and 570 miles East to West. It includes the fast growing urban communities including Salt Lake City, Ogden-Layton, Provo-Orem, Reno-Sparks, Boise, Nampa, Logan, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Carson City, and Bend. Las Vegas, although not in the Great Basin if defined on a drainage basis, has a major and increasing influence on its ecosystems.

The rapid progression of invasive plant species is influenced by three dominant factors:

• Population change and distribution
• Climate change, and
• Technology.

The urban and suburban populations are growing at a rate that will require different uses of water, create difficult urban rural interfaces, and are responsible for differing demands for environmental services by the population than in the past. Rural areas are experiencing changes as well, including depopulation, slowed economic growth and development, and an aging population.

Climate change is important and has the specter of increasing during this century. Estimates are that the climate has warmed by 0.6 to 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 100 years, and may warm from 3 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century (Environmental Protection Agency 1998 and Wagner 2003). With this change may come not only the gradual warming of the climate, but increased variability and severe storms.

Technology is the third feature identified to have an overarching influence on the environment. This embraces many positive and negative factors. Examples of positive factors include more water efficient residences, improved techniques of water management for mining and agriculture industries, new concepts of societal organization and action with the growth of NGOs, and capacities for added mapping and collection and organization of other information about the condition of the environment. Negative effects are present as well and include easier access to, and greater utilization of, wilderness areas, hunting and fishing pressures, improved roads, increased urban rural interface issues, and urban sprawl.

Public Lands: A Special Issue for the Great Basin

Another unique feature of the Great Basin is the fact that the federal government owns most of the land; approximately 75 million acres, or 72 percent. Many of the industries that drive Great Basin economies are located on federal lands. Mining, agriculture and recreation industries are examples. These industries and resources are controlled by the federal government (Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service) as well as various state agencies. With environmental degradation of the Great Basin there are conflicting pressures on these federal and state agencies, and conflicting ideas about the best approaches to the management of these lands.

Other significant partners in the management of the Great Basin environment are the Native American Tribes.   Reservations for these tribes occupy an important segment of the Great Basin and are at times located across states. Both public and private lands interface with Tribal Lands in the Great Basin, and for success of the environmental initiative, special consideration must be given both to the cultural heritage of the people, land conservation and natural resource restoration in the reservations.  The present and future of the GBEP are rooted in the fact that the people on the reservations must be engaged as important stakeholders in the effort to improve the degrading environment of the Great Basin.

According to Noss et. al., 1995, and Wisdom 2005, the Great Basin is one of the most imperiled ecosystems in the United States. The Great Basin Environmental Program includes all organizations responsible for managing special problems in this ecosystem. The focal issue for the GBEP, which spans all areas of environmental management in the Great Basin, is the rapid growth and expansion of invasive plant species.

The proposed Great Basin Environmental Program will not only support pre-existing projects addressing environmental issues in the Great Basin, but will be more encompassing, involving consensus approaches to these difficult issues.