Executive Summary
The proposed Great Basin Environmental Program is a bold and
innovative environmental management initiative modeled after
the Chesapeake Bay Program and approximately 25 other estuarial
environmental programs that have been operating in the United
States since the approval of the Clean Water Act. It will be
the first such program aimed at a terrestrial area, the Great
Basin, designated as one of the most imperiled ecosystems in
the United States. The proposal will establish partnerships and
integrate efforts with federal agencies, state agencies, NGOs
and the private sector to address critical ecosystem issues.
Although not an estuarial area, the region addressed through Great Basin Environmental
Program has many similarities to those regions that have been designated
for special environmental action in the United States. At the
heart of the ecosystem issues for the Great Basin is the rapid
increase in the population and the tendency of the population
to live in urban areas. This increase in population and changing
distribution of the population has put significant stress on
the environment in the Great Basin, threatening to change the
environment in irreversible ways. If the Great Basin is to continue
to be a place of choice for residents and visitors, new and more
effective approaches to the environment and its special ecosystems
will have to be formulated and implemented.
The features of the Chesapeake Bay Program and other estuarial programs that have
made them effective include the broadness of the
management approaches, the coordination of groups that have capacities
for addressing the issues, and the ability to engage the private
citizens in efforts to better manage the environment. Similar
characteristics will be evident in the Great Basin Environmental
Program. Existing federal and state agencies will be more effective
through closer collaboration, NGOs will become more involved
in addressing issues of greater scope, and the private sector
and citizens will be engaged through a foundation that has as
its mission addressing the environmental issues of priority to
the Great Basin.
There are several excellent Great Basin programs in place for
conducting scientific research, on-the ground implementation and
management, providing educational programs and facilitating public
input in the decision making process. These include, but are
not limited to, the Great Basin Ecosystem Studies Unit, the BLM
Great Basin Restoration Initiative, the U.S. Forest Service Great
Basin Collaborative Watershed Research and Management, Great
Basin USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure, Eastern
Nevada Landscape Coalition, Northern Nevada Stewardship Group,
and the Great Basin Plant Materials Center. In addition, state
agencies in all of the Great Basin states are also actively contributing
to the regulation and management of Great Basin land and related
natural resources. However, most of these programs have either
minimal or no funding. This proposal requests new funding to
establish the Great Basin Environmental Program as an umbrella
organization to effectively coordinate the efforts of these various
programs and to jointly develop priorities to address the critical
issues of the Great Basin.
The proposal is for a two-stage effort. Over a period of two
years, the Great Basin Environmental Program will be operated
out of the University of Nevada, Reno. The funding required for
this first stage is $2 million per year. More than half of these
funds will pass through to state agencies for programs in the
Great Basin. The remaining funds will be shared among the universities
and other educational institutions as well as the NGOs on a competitive
basis, and will focus on jointly determined priority issues.
In addition, the University of Nevada, Reno will seek to establish
a Great Basin Foundation as a basis for involving the private
sector and individual citizens.
During the second stage, the Great Basin Environmental Program
will be turned over to a lead federal agency and an organization
composed of the Governors of the Great Basin states, similar
to the Chesapeake Bay Program, and be funded at about $25 million
per annum. The funded allocations are 15 percent for operations
and management; 50 percent to state agencies and NGOs for programs
to address priority environmental issues; and 35 percent to universities
and other organizations to develop research that is targeted
to Great Basin priority environmental issues.
A key feature of the Great Basin Environmental Program will
be the development and management of a monitoring system that
shows the impacts of the targeted environment and ecosystem initiatives.
This monitoring system has proven essential to the Chesapeake
Bay and other estuarial environmental programs. The citizens
and the governmental agencies and the NGOs can only attract added
resources if there is a recognized and credible measurement of
the progress that is being made on the key environmental issues.