Ecology & Safety, Volume 16, 2022

Abstract: Millions of acres of public lands in Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming are imperiled by invasive species and wildfires, which reduce ecosystem health, decrease the productivity of public lands for wildlife, diminish recreation assets, and threaten the safety for communities. There is a need to manage public lands to sustain ecosystem services and enhances human safety. Agencies responsible for managing these lands, including the Forest Service, National Park Service, BLM, State Parks, and others, lack the capacity to complete such work and rely on the intervention of AmeriCorps members to mitigate the spread of invasive weeds and reduce wildfire fuel loads that threaten communities and habitat. For this evaluation, Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) is collaborating with a cohort of conservation corps (Public Lands Service Coalition (PLSC)) to conduct a national evaluation. This study is led by Dr. Allie McCreary and Dr. Lily Popova Zhuhadar from Western Kentucky University. This research aims to assess the impact AmeriCorps members may have in reducing invasive species and minimizing wildfire fuel loads on public lands. In this research, we introduce preliminary results of the evaluation method used to assess the impact of AmeriCorps members on natural and recreation resource enhancement.