The Sky Islands of the Madrean Archipelago are a globally recognized center of biocultural diversity Our vision: that sprawls north to south across the U.S. –Mexico Restore hydrologic and biologic processes borderlands. There are 55 Sky Island throughout whole watersheds, from the top ranges and desert grassland seas that are thought of the to the basins below; to contain more than 3,000 plants, over half of all Maintain the unique biocultural diversity species of birds found in North America, thousands found in the Madrean Archipelago by of species of invertebrates, 104 mammals, working across borders, jurisdictions, and including the only known wild jaguar in the U.S. public and private boundaries; and the only ocelot in , nearly 100 reptiles, and 25 native amphibians. Tucked within this Build resilient natural and human magnificent and valuable landscape, the majority communities based on restoration of U.S. citizens exist with household and per capita economies; and incomes much lower than both state and national Address social inequities and improve levels. As with the majority of the world’s poor, quality of life in the borderlands. people living in similar rural areas depend on ecosystems and related for subsistence, security, and income. The Sky Island Restoration Cooperative (SIRC) is a bi-national community-based collaboration of government and non-governmental organizations, private landowners, ranchers, students, volunteers, scientists, and restoration practitioners. Our hope is that by combining our energy and knowledge, we can improve restoration activities, outcomes, and awareness across the Madrean Archipelago and nurture an understanding of the importance of biodiversity for human well-being. Identifying restoration research and resource needs, the SIRC is a vehicle for information-sharing, training, and project implementation. Our cooperative builds bridges across institutional, administrative, and See us in action! cultural boundaries to create effective regional www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYatTc69zlM restoration strategies. In FY16, the Sky Island Restoration Cooperative (SIRC) included involvement and/or direct work from these organizations: Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS) Arizona State University (ASU) Borderlands Habitat Network (BHN) Borderlands Restoration L3C (BR) Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP) Cuenca Los Ojos (CLO) Deep Dirt Farm Institute, LLC (DDFI) Gila Watershed Partnership (GWP) Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Cananea (ITSC) Sky Island Alliance (SIA) Southwest Monarch Study (SMS) Springs Stewardship Institute (SSI) Tucson Audubon Society (TAS) U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) U.S. National Park Service (NPS) Wildlands Network (WN) New SIRC partners in FY 2016: American Conservation Experience (ACE) Arizona Center for Nature Conservation/Phoenix Zoo Arizona- Desert Museum (ASDM) Cienega Watershed Partnership Friends of Pima County The Nature Conservancy (TNC) University of Arizona Wildlife Corridors, LLC Other organizations involved with SIRC:

Arizona Conservation Corps (AZCC) GeoSystems Analysis, Inc. Patagonia Regional Community Arizona Department of Hummingbird Monitoring Network Foundation Environmental Quality (ADEQ) (HMN) Patagonia Union High School Bat Conservation International (BCI) Institute for Applied Ecology (IAE) Rancho San José del Carrizo Biophilia Foundation Make Way for Monarchs Seibert Ecological Restoration, LLC Brophy Family Foundation Monarch Watch Society for Ecological Restoration, Comisión Nacional Forestal MX Secretariat for Communications Southwest Chapter (CONAFOR) and Transportation (SCT) Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Desert Botanical Garden (DBG) Native Seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) Coordination Center (SABCC) Desert Landscape Conservation Natural Channel Design Southwest Monarch Study Cooperative (DLCC) Natural Resources Conservation Stream Dynamics, LLC Douglas High School Service (NRCS) Tohono O’Odham Nation Eastern Arizona College Naturalia, A.C. Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Eco Ideas, LLC Nature and Culture International U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) Freeport McMoran, Inc. Northern Arizona University Vail Unified School District (VUSD) Friends of Brown Canyon Ranch Patagonia Area Resource Alliance Windsong Peace and Leadership Friends of Madera Canyon (PARA) Center

2 Executive Summary treasured natural and cultural resources. We continued our partnership with local high schools — Patagonia, e Sky Island Restoration Cooperative (SIRC) is a Douglas, and Empire — and expanded our reach to communication network designed to facilitate story- include more Tucson schools in the Schoolyard BioBlitz telling for and between restoration practitioners, programs. Mentoring youth is critical to the success of scientists, land managers, citizen scientists, and SIRC, and more importantly, the key to future resource volunteers. Our goal is to facilitate effective landscape conservation. e success of SIRC is due to dedicated restoration at increasingly larger scales by cooperating agency and NGO staff, and the overwhelming and reporting on community-based projects. More generosity of our volunteer workforce. simply stated, we see ourselves as weaving together the disparate threads of ecosystem restoration into an Education & Outreach integrated effort that restores the mutualisms which are Education and outreach are important aspects of all of inherent between people and place. our SIRC partnership projects. We believe that investing e SIRC report is organized around six themes: in youth and engaging local volunteers is critical to help Education & Outreach, Planning & Partnerships, conserve and restoration our local natural resources, as Habitat Restoration, Inventory & Monitoring, Plant well as innovating new ideas, new techniques, and new Materials, and Research. is Executive Summary information to help guide our restoration activities. provides an overview and basic road map of our efforts. e Borderlands Restoration Leadership Institute is a new e second part of the report includes Resource Briefs endeavor designed as a project-based learning from around the Madrean Archipelago with more in- laboratory that explores and activates collective, creative depth descriptions of each of the individual projects. solutions to natural resource challenges and SIRC has more than 65 partner organizations, with new opportunities by working at the intersection of border partners joining every year. SIRC is an international region economies and ecologies. Our partners look cooperative with a number of partner groups in the forward to implementing new innovative ideas and United States and Mexico as well as the Tohono technologies developed by the Institute. O’odham Nation. SIRC considers it part of our mission SIRC partners cooperated on three summer youth to involve local residents, landowners, and student programs to engage students in summer employment groups in all stages of resource protection and and environmental education: Borderlands Earth Care restoration. We are proud of the fact that our 2016 Youth Institute , Youth Engaged Stewardship at Las membership included a number of local ‘Friends’ Ciénegas National Conservation Area , and the Gila groups: Brown Canyon Ranch, Madera Canyon, and Watershed Youth Conservation Corps . Alianza Mariposa Saguaro National Park. ese are groups of volunteers Monarca is a coordinated effort for young biologists dedicated to the conservation and enhancement of throughout Sonora to learn about monarch butterflies

3 and to collect data on their populations at various away from sensitive riparian habitat, provide locations. Saguaro National Park worked with the information and education on how to mitigate impacts Tucson Unified School District through Schoolyard to resources, as well as providing input that reduced the BioBlitzes to engage students to learn more about the impacts to wildlife species habitats. environment outside their Habitat Restoration classroom. e Insect and Pollinator BioBlitz was a two-day volunteer SIRC partners have been very event to document these important effective at implementing a number populations at Tumacácori National of restoration projects in areas Historical Park. identified as important habitat for a number of plant and animal species. Planning & Partnerships SIRC has focused on the restoration SIRC partners continued their of a network of ‘pollinator islands’ efforts to nurture partnerships across the Sky Island Region, as across agency, organizational, described in our 2014 and 2015 international, tribal, and Annual Reports, and continued this community boundaries. work in 2016. Many of these Highlighted in this 2016 report are projects were developed with the efforts of the Southern Arizona integrated resource objectives which Resilient Landscape Cooperative to include restoration of native plant secure Department of Interior species, providing habitat for funding to share with various pollinator species, and providing partners to treat high priority riparian habitat for the endangered buffelgrass populations across Chiricahua leopard frog and a southeastern Arizona. A dedicated number of bat species. 2016 projects group of professionals continued enhanced wildlife habitat by their efforts to protect lowland planting native plant species with an leopard frog populations and emphasis on nectar and milkweed habitat throughout our region, and species produced at our local to develop a management Madrean Archipelago nurseries. guidebook that hopefully will help e Arizona Monarch Conservation prevent this species from being Partnership continued and listed as TES. e Douglas Ranger enhanced our efforts to provide District of the Coronado National public education and get nectar and Forest cleared a hurdle when they milkweed plants incorporated into completed a programmatic pollinator islands and backyards. Categorical Exclusion (CE) NEPA e Conservation Partnership analysis to help meet requirements reached over 17,000 people and to implement watershed restoration estimate more than 720 people across the . changed their behavior regarding is CE can be used as a template monarchs. e Gila Watershed for other agencies to complete Partnership continued large-scale similar analyses. e Wildlife riparian restoration on the Gila Linkages Binational Partnership River aimed at removal of invasive species and completed a very successful year in their efforts to restoration of native habitat for many riparian reduce impacts to natural resources within the dependent species, including the endangered Southwest expansion corridor of Mexican Highway 2. is willow flycatcher. Partnership was able to reroute a portion of the highway

4 Sky Island Alliance (SIA), the Coronado National Forest Tucson Audubon Society trained volunteers to conduct (CNF) and Arizona Game and Fish Department worked surveys for yellow-billed cuckoos, providing surprising together to add additional Chiricahua leopard frog information on the unique habitat requirements of ponds and bat waters to our other aquatic restoration cuckoos in our region. Sky Island Alliance, the projects in Rucker Canyon of the Coronado National Forest, and the Chiricahua Mountains, in National Park Service teamed up for preparation for the planned release an expedition into the rugged of a new population of frogs in to document 2018. Efforts to remove invasive conditions at springs and streams, fountain grass continued in the with a special emphasis on botanical of the collections. Springs assessments in CNF by SIA and several groups of the region are also now occurring in hearty volunteers. Following Sonora: Sky Island Alliance has removal, native plants were installed been working with the Springs to add to our network of pollinator Stewardship Institute and Sonoran islands across the Sky Island region. landowners and land managers to Additional pollinator islands were train personnel and volunteers to planted in three national parks in ensure consistent spring inventory cooperation with NPS, SIA and information across the U.S. –Mexico Borderlands Restoration. border. e National Park Service, Comisión Nacional de Áreas SIA cooperated with the Instituto Naturales Protegidas (CONANP), Tecnológico Superior de Canaea and Sky Island Alliance also worked and Ranch San Jose del Carrizo to to ensure wildlife camera use the Power of Rocks to restore monitoring protocols are consistent damaged watersheds in northern among the six “Sister Parks” — three Sonora. A good time was had by all on each side of the border. e and we encourage you to see us in Coronado National Forest is action on YouTube: experimenting with collaboration www.youtube.com/watch? with an NGO (SIA) to hire a skilled v=zYatTc69zlm . intern to contribute to the USFS Inventory and Monitoring effort to document and validate SIRC is dedicated to inventory and valuable water rights. monitoring of our natural resources, Several groups worked together to in addition to researching the effects build erosion control structures of our restoration projects. We are (ECS) in the southern Chiricahua excited to continue to add to our Mountains and to monitor the body of knowledge. Funding for effects of these structures on inventory and monitoring is oen changes in soil moisture ( Soil limited and SIRC partners have Moisture and Inundation Monitoring worked together to come up with at Loose Rock Erosion Control innovative ways to cooperate to Structures in the Chiricahua collect some of the data we need. Mountains ) and vegetation Another important component of SIRC research (Monitoring Short-Term Vegetation Response to projects is that most involve NGOs, private landowners, Watershed Restoration ). Fiy cameras have been and community volunteers. Volunteers are critical to the deployed as part of Wildlife and Water in the Chiricahua success of almost all of our inventory and monitoring Mountains: Does Watershed Restoration Affect Wildlife projects.

5 Species Composition? Processing is continuing on more investigate if ECS might have another ecological benefit than three million images collected with the intent to through storage of carbon. A University of Arizona demonstrate how surface water availability in restored graduate student worked with USFS to use innovative channels influences wildlife communities and to time-lapse photography to help quantify infiltration at document when surface water is ECS aer storm events. Results present. We are looking forward to indicate a single ECS could increase these results to help guide future total infiltration by 0-255%, with ECS projects and what additional the most likely scenario being an benefits we will be able to attribute increase of approximately 10%. is to the use of ECS in watershed report also includes a study from restoration. e Nature Conservancy and the Bureau of Land Management that SIRC’s commitment to implement examined 10 years of vegetation projects and to work together to data collected from 2004-2014 and inventory, monitor and research our found some surprising results: results has helped us refine our Perennial grass cover declined in techniques and to be more response to spring drought, successful in competing at the local challenging our long-held notion and national levels for funding from that warm seasons grasses most agencies and private foundations. oen respond to monsoon Research moisture. SIRC continues to strive to fund Research by SIRC partners over the and implement research to past several years is demonstrating document the benefits of our the benefits of our restoration restoration activities. An important projects and strongly influencing restoration technique utilized by our ability to generate new projects SIRC partners is the and sources of funding. Research implementation of low-cost, low- results have helped persuade agency tech ECS. ‘Stacking rocks’ is not decision makers and private necessarily a highly technical or landowners to implement resource innovative practice, but these restoration projects, and support techniques have been used in this research on their effectiveness. region for hundreds of years; our partners have committed to Plant Materials designing research studies to Suitable plant materials are oen document their effectiveness so that lacking for wildland restoration we can communicate them to a projects. SIRC partners have broader audience. Research results prioritized the collection and have provided statistically reliable banking of locally-collected seeds to data quantifying the benefits of ECS be grown out in local greenhouses, and has published the results in and to contribute to the BLM Seeds scientific journals. USGS has been of Success seedbank. ese efforts monitoring and modeling are providing materials for our geomorphology of streams with ECS and has produced ongoing restoration efforts, and preserving these species data to quantify the benefits to help restoration for future generations. e Madrean Archipelago Plant practitioners better design and model watershed Propagation Initiative guides our local seed collection restoration projects to ensure success. USGS and the and plant propagation efforts to meet the Bureau of Arizona Geological Survey are collaborating to Land Management’s National Seed Strategy. In addition,

6 an interagency botanical crew was the result of three restore our collective resources. SIRC continues to take federal agencies and two NGOs pooling their limited advantage of opportunities for cross-agency and cross- financial resources to conduct plant inventories and border cooperation. We are in our infancy in the seed collection across the Madrean Archipelago. development and implementation of consistent inventory and monitoring methods Highlights of SIRC 2016 to collect data across lands Because SIRC involves a number of administered by various partners from large and small jurisdictions and countries. organizations, and combinations of Comparable data (i.e., apples to federal/state/local governments, apples) is imperative if we are to NGOs, schools, private landowners, manage at the landscape scale and and volunteers without any respond to the challenges of climate overhead structure, it is difficult to change. Our success stories include explain how it all coalesces into a ongoing spring inventories, workable Cooperative. We continue Monarch butterfly monitoring, to strive to bring our vision for camera monitoring of mammal restoration of our borderlands into species, seed collection, and the reality and to continue to create establishment of an interagency restoration economy-based jobs. botany crew across the Madrean We are gratified by the number of Archipelago. restoration projects we have Reliable, proven restoration implemented with limited funding techniques that work in our unique and huge volunteer contributions. arid climate get more and more We are particularly proud of the important with each year of number of inventory, monitoring, drought. Continued investigation and research projects we have been into the use of locally collected able to implement and support. plant materials, and the role of ECS Defensible data is key to our success in the stabilization of watersheds — in soliciting support from land reducing peak flows and increasing management agencies and private infiltration — may prove to be landowners, and financial support crucial in helping to maintain the from funding organizations. integrity and viability of the Inventory/monitoring/research is Madrean Archipelago landscape. oen conducted in somewhat of a We now have three years of ‘vacuum’, however, most of our cooperation between partner studies involved substantial groups, restoration practitioners, volunteer involvement. Volunteers researchers, and land management have donated their time to attend agencies; we are at the point where training sessions and endured long we are starting to have enough hikes and hot weather to make success at watershed restoration and substantial contributions, both to emerging research to provide our scientific knowledge and in models and research results to help ensuring the success of all of our inform management decision on restoration projects. public lands. Following is a case study illustrating one SIRC partners continue to strive to erase agency example of how research results and modeling were boundaries within the U.S. and the border that separates used to guide restoration implementation on the the U.S. from Mexico. We all live in the same landscape Douglas Ranger District of the Coronado National and it is vital that we work together to conserve and Forest.

7 The Sky Island Restoration Cooperative (SIRC) is a coalition of restoration practitioners, scientists, and land managers working together to restore the ecological processes and systems of the Sky Islands in the Madrean Archipelago of the U.S. –Mexico Borderlands. A Case Study: Research to Guide Management Decisions and Project Implementation; Douglas Ranger District, Coronado National Forest USGS, USFS, BLM, Borderlands Restoration L3C, Sky Island Alliance, Deep Dirt Farm Institute

Abstract helping USFS predict the environmental effects of ECS installation for NEPA requirements, and guide where Partners of the Sky Island Restoration Cooperative these practices can be most effective. (SIRC) are committed to: Restore hydrologic and biologic processes throughout whole watersheds, from the top of Project Background the mountains to the basins below. Partners have USGS research documented an increase of 28% water focused on the installation of a variety of erosion yield in a watershed restored using ECS vs an untreated control structures (ECS) to help reduce soil erosion while watershed near the El Coronado Ranch in the Chiricahua retaining sediment, increasing infiltration and Mountains (Norman, et al., 2015). ese results caught enhancing plant production. SIRC strives to research the attention of many land managers, including the and demonstrate the effectiveness of low cost/low tech Coronado National Forest (CNF), whose management restoration practices that agencies, volunteers and focus is on consistent, comparable, and credible process private landowners can implement across the for improving the health and stability of watersheds on landscape. Because we advocate the use of low national forests and grasslands. Restoration in the cost/low tech practices that have anecdotal support – Chiricahua Mountains was of particular interest to the it has been important for us to engage research CNF because the Horseshoe II Fire had burned almost partners to quantify the effectiveness of these the entire mountain range in 2011. Many burned areas techniques. USGS has been researching the design, were experiencing significant flooding, erosion and implementation and benefits of a variety of ECS debris flows which has caused stream sedimentation, throughout southeastern AZ to help guide infrastructure damage, and degraded watershed function. management decisions. In just three years we have e were also of interest to the CNF partnered on a number of projects to combine because of inherently erosive substrates and the potential research and monitoring with the installation of ECS. for future watershed restoration and improved watershed This briefing will describe how USGS research results function. Subsequent site visits in the vicinity of the showing a 28% increase in flow on a watershed Douglas Ranger District further piqued the interest of restored with ECS, when compared to an adjacent CNF staff as they observed reduced soil erosion and peak untreated watershed which got the attention of flows, increased soil moisture and plant production, and Coronado National Forest managers. This research improved wildlife habitats in areas with ECS restoration resulted in an ongoing partnership where USGS on private lands. research and modeling results are helping guide USFS CNF contacted USGS asking for their help to determine management decisions. USGS research results are where ECS would be an effective watershed restoration

8 treatment, and USGS happily agreed to assist. USGS recommended modeling erosion and rainfall/runoff response as a way to help CNF determine where the installation of small rock ECS can help reduce erosion and runoff and improve watershed conditions, and where erosion and runoff are so high that small rock ECS might not be effective. Methods USGS recommended using the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment Tool (AGWA), developed by the USDA-ARS, EPA, and the A one-rock dam collects sediment and slowly releases water. / SIA University of Arizona. e model assesses erosion and rainfall/runoff response and can be used to help predict kind’s soils already mapped by USFS TEUI ecological how land management practices effect runoff, and map units would be the most efficient method. provide a long-range model to evaluate large, complex In order to be able to use the existing TEUI data in the watersheds with varying soils, land uses and management AGWA model, USFS soil scientists researched NRCS soil conditions. map units throughout southeastern Arizona and e AGWA model operates using national data (DEM, developed a method to crosswalk or aggregate smaller Land Cover, and Soils). is data is available at no cost, (more detailed) TEUI ecological map units, into but there is very little high resolution soils data for the corresponding larger (less refined) NRCS soil map units. lands managed by the USFS. In the United States, State ey created a shapefile of TEUI polygons with Soil Geographic (STATSGO, 1:250,000 scale) and Soil associated map unit symbols of NRCS soil map units and Survey Geographic (SSURGO, 1:24,000 scale) are the two corresponding tabular NRCS data. And AGWA most commonly used spatial soil databases. In the study watershed maps predicting high, medium, and low runoff area of the Dragoon and Chiricahua Mountains, USFS and sediment delivery were produced for the Chiricahua land is mapped using the Terrestrial Ecological Unit and Dragoon Mountains. Inventory (TEUI) (Winthers et al, 2005) and provides Results lower resolution (more detailed) data. e AGWA model produced sixth code watershed maps USFS TEUI soil scientists met with USGS scientists to of the Chiricahua and Dragoon Mountains showing high, determine how to ‘fit’ available TEUI data into the medium and low preliminary surface water runoff and parameters needed for the AGWA model, and determined that assigning soils classifications to the continued next page

9 sediment prediction results. CNF is using these maps to help determine which watersheds are most likely to benefit from the installation of ECS, assuming that installation of small rock structures in watersheds with low to medium runoff would be more effective than installation in watersheds with high runoff predictions where structures would have a higher risk of failure. Model results helped the CNF predict environmental effects in their Sediment yield map derived for the Chiricahua Mountains and NEPA analysis for their: Project Initiation Letter: the USFS-CNF Douglas Ranger District, zoomed in to the Bar Boot sub-watersheds, chosen for restoration in 2014/15. / L.M. Norman Chiricahua Watershed Restoration Project NEPA, May 19, 2016). Data was also used by the CNF to select the Tex Canyon and Pinery watersheds and the Bar Boot stream gages, summarizing multiple years, and further Allotment on the Chiricahua Mountains where ECS interpreted to provide more sound results. is is a start installation and restoration is now in progress. for prioritizing watersheds at risk that might be improved e products from the Dragoon model were used to by restoration management. facilitate a site visit by CNF and stream restoration Future experts to targeted watersheds within the mountain range, in order to identify the watersheds with the e AGWA model is a management tool can then be greatest potential for successful restoration and what readily applied in the event of a wildfire, for rapid visual restoration tools would be most appropriate. recognition of watershed areas prone to post-fire impacts. AGWA provides consistent, standardized model results of e Chiricahua and Dragoon model outputs are now set watershed scale assessments for runoff and up to portray preliminary surface water runoff and erosion/sediment transport at multiple points of potential sedimentation prediction results to help USFS implement risk and for all model elements (Goodrich, et al., 2014). If future restoration projects. ese preliminary results feasible, models should be calibrated to improve pre- and need to be refined to better support the predictions, using post-fire performance with more confidence (Hogue, et al., 2011). e AGWA model can be used for future scenario analysis and to develop estimates of peak flow and sediment load at precise locations during large storm events, to help design the structures that would be less likely to fail. Literature Cited Canfield, et al., 2005. Selection of parameter values to model post-fire runoff and sediment transport at the watershed scale in southwestern forests. Proceedings ASCE Watershed Management Conference, July 19 –22, Williamsburg, VA.

A group of volunteers from Mexico helps to maintain erosion control structures in the Chiricahua Mountains. / SIA

10 Erosion control structure illustrating sediment accumulation and ponded water. / SIA

Goodrich, et al., 2005. Rapid post-fire hydrologic Nichols, M.H., V.O. Polyakov, M.A. Nearing, M. watershed assessment using the AGWA GIS-based Hernandez, 2016. Semiarid watershed response to low- hydrologic modeling tool. Proceedings ASCE Watershed tech porous rock check dams. Soil Science . Management Conference, July 19 –22, Williamsburg, 181(7):275 –282. doi: 10.1097/SS.0000000000000160 . VA. Norman, L.M., F. Brinkerhoff, E. Gwilliam, D.P. Guertin, Hogue, T.S., A.M. Kinoshita, B.C. Hale, and C. Napper, J. Callegary, D.C. Goodrich, P.L. Nagler, and F. Gray, 2012. Post-fire hydrologic model assessment for design 2015. Hydrologic response of streams restored with storm runoff and mitigation. Presented at the Southwest check dams in the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona. Wildfire Hydrology and Hazards Workshop, Tucson River Research and Applications , doi: 10.1002/rra.2895 . Arizona. Retrieved from http://repository.azgs.az.gov/ Winthers, E., D. Fallon, J. Haglund, T. DeMeo, G. sites/default/ files/dlio/files/nid1405/02g_hogue_etal_ Nowacki, D. Tart, M. Ferwerda, G. Robertson, A. modelingofpost-firehydrologicprocesses_poster.pdf . Gallegos, A. Rorick, D.T. Cleland, and W. Robbie, 2005. Mednick, A. C. (2010). Does soil data resolution matter? Terrestrial Ecological Unit Inventory technical guide. State Soil Geographic database versus Soil Survey Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Geographic database in rainfall-runoff modeling across Forest Service, Washington Office, Ecosystem Wisconsin. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation , Management Coordination Staff. 245 p . 65(3):190–199. doi: 10.2489/jswc.65.3.190 . Mednick, A.C., J. Sullivan, and D.J. Watermolen, 2008. Comparing the use of STATSGO and SSURGO soils data in water quality modeling: A literature review. Bureau of Science Services. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Issue 60.

11 12 13 14 The Borderlands Restoration Leadership Institute 16 Schoolyard BioBlitzes in Tucson 18 Youth Engaged Stewardship at Las Cienegas National Conservation Area 20 Four Years of Success: Borderlands Earth Care Youth Institute in Patagonia 22 Borderlands Earth Care Youth Institute Completes its Second Year in Douglas 24 Gila Watershed Youth Conservation Corps 26 Alianza Mariposa Monarca

28 Southern Arizona Resilient Landscape Collaborative Continues to “Beat Back Buffelgrass” 30 Partnership to Conserve Lowland Leopard Frog in the Rincon/Santa Catalina Mountain Complex 32 Chiricahua Watershed Restoration Clears NEPA Hurdle 34 Wild Linkages Binational Partnership: MX Highway 2

36 Arizona Monarch Conservation Partnership 38 Tamarisk Removal and Habitat Restoration on the Upper Gila River of Arizona 40 Setting the Stage for Chiricahua Leopard Frogs in Rucker Canyon 42 Bear Canyon Fountain Grass Removal and Pollinator Islands Project 44 The Power of Rocks: Working Together to Repair Damaged Watersheds in Northern Sonora 46 Pollinators in the Parks

14 48 Yellow-billed Cuckoos in Oak Drainages in Southeastern Arizona: Critical Habitat Attributes for Future Restoration 50 Backpacking BioBlitz into the Rugged Galiuro Mountains 52 Developing Cooperative Relationships in Borderland Parks and Reserves: Wildlife Monitoring with Camera Traps 54 Water Rights Intern for the Coronado National Forest 56 Soil Moisture and Inundation Monitoring at Loose Rock Erosion Control Structures in the Chiricahua Mountains 58 Evaluating Effects of Restoring Surface Water on Mammal and Ground Bird Communities 60 Sonoran Springs: Building Capacity for Springs Conservation 62 Monitoring Short-term Vegetation Response to Watershed Restoration

64 Effects of Post-wildfire Erosion Control Structures on Carbon and Nitrogen Cycling, Storage, and Sequestration 66 Monitoring and Modeling Geomorphology of Streams with Erosion Control Structures 68 The Effect of Gabion Construction on Infiltration in Ephemeral Streams 70 Enduring a Decade of Drought at Las Cienegas NCA: Patterns and Drivers of Vegetation Change

72 The Madrean Archipelago Plant Propagation Initiative Develops a Regional Seed Strategy 74 Agencies Work Together to Cultivate Botanical Expertise

15 The Sky Island Restoration Cooperative (SIRC) is a coalition of restoration practitioners, scientists, and land managers working together to restore the ecological processes and systems of the Sky Islands in the Madrean Archipelago of the U.S. –Mexico Borderlands. e Borderlands Restoration Leadership Institute Borderlands Restoration, Borderlands Habitat Network, Biophilia Foundation, Cuenca Los Ojos, Deep Dirt Farm Institute, Wildlife Corridors

Abstract knowledge on both sides of the border. Goals include increasing partner effectiveness across scales and social e complex social and ecological challenges facing the groups in Mexico and the U.S., and catalyzing and myriad communities with whom we work require extending our work through collaborative restoration innovations that match the territory. e Borderlands projects that become training grounds for skill- Restoration Leadership Institute (BRLI) is designed as building in all facets of ecological restoration and a project-based learning laboratory that explores and environmental justice. activates collective, creative solutions to natural resource challenges and opportunities by working at BRLI’s six core founders comprise a group of social- the intersection of border region economies and entrepreneurial leaders from academia, NGOs of many ecologies. ese are sites of complex systems of sizes and ages, and the private sector who hope to align exchange, reciprocity, and caring for place that can efforts in ways already supported by SIRC partners empower people to steward many kinds of such as Gila Watershed Partnership, Sky Island relationships at once and in concert — our shared Alliance, and USGS, among many others who have vision of a restoration economy. rough project-based been hard at work in the region for decades. e learning and collaborative approaches to habitat and Institute is organized with primary non-profit and c