At a Glance
With a resource stewardship plan in hand, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is well-equipped to protect and enhance its diverse collection of natural resources into the future.
Project Description
Colorado State Forest State Park encompasses 71,000 acres in the Medicine Bow Mountains of northern Colorado. Consisting of forest, jagged peaks, alpine lakes and widely varying terrain, the park is a treasure trove of natural resources.
Recognizing that the maintenance and protection of these resources would require a clear understanding of the park’s ecosystems, Colorado Parks and Wildlife turned to Biohabitats to conduct research and field studies on a representative area comprising 6,800 acres. Ecosystems targeted for the study included streams and riparian areas, alpine lakes and meadows, conifer and aspen forests, and rare montane sand dunes.
Biohabitats’ field work included vegetation community mapping, vegetation monitoring plots, noxious weed mapping, geology and soils feature identification, and water resources assessment. After analyzing the field data, Biohabitats developed a resource stewardship plan. The plan established natural resource maintenance goals and recommended strategies to achieve those goals and methods to use for monitoring progress.