It’s Not Just a Job . . .
MANAGiNG NATurAl reSOurCeS ON Mili TAry lANDS
By Alison Dalsimer, leslie Catherwood, and Chris Franke
Alison Dalsimer is
a Conservation and
Natural Resources
Associate at Booz
Allen Hamilton and
provides contract
support to DoD’s
Deputy Director for
Natural Resources.
Credit: Kristin Gross
Have you ever wanted to mark individual bird nests to prevent them from being run over by amphibious assault vehicles? Would you
enjoy rappelling half-way down a cliff on a remote
Army base to hand-pollinate a remnant population of
native plants? Or maybe you’d like to negotiate with
fighter pilots over access rights to a cloudless day so
you can conduct a much-needed prescribed burn?
Coauthor
Affiliations
leslie Catherwood
is an Associate at
Booz Allen Hamilton.
Chris Franke is a
Consultant at Booz
Allen Hamilton.
Such are the unusual yet essential aspects of working as a natural resource manager on military lands
overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
The biologists, botanists, foresters, and others who
manage plant and animal resources on DoD lands
are responsible for ensuring the long-term survival
of a broad array of endangered, at-risk, and common species on diverse habitats throughout the 50
states. They do this for the sake of the resource, and
also to support the military’s testing and training
mission. It’s a unique niche within the wildlife profession, and one with enormous challenges.
It may seem contradictory to combine military training with conservation, yet DoD has been managing
this dual mission for decades. According to DoD pol-
At elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, David Battle, a natural resource specialist from
Alaska’s Fort richardson, joins biologists from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game
and the university of Alaska at Fairbanks to study moose (Alces alces) that travel near
base housing areas. Funded by the Department of Defense, researchers will follow the
animals for two years to determine their typical travel corridors.
Credit: u. S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Keith Brown
icy: “Conservation programs shall work to guarantee
continued access to our land, air, and water resources
for realistic military training and testing while ensuring that the natural and cultural resources entrusted
to DoD care are sustained in a healthy condition for
scientific research, education, and other compatible
uses by future generations” (DoD Instruction 4715.3).
That mandate creates a special symbiotic relationship
between military readiness and habitat conservation.
A Resource Worth Defending
DoD oversees nearly 30 million acres of land across
about 420 installations, 355 of which have natural resources significant enough to require active
management plans. From sage scrub to short-grass
prairie, longleaf pine to old-growth forests, coastlines to baked desert, these installations range in
size from the Navy’s 186-acre Carderock facility in
Maryland to the vast White Sands Missile Range in
New Mexico, which tops three million acres. These
landscapes also host more than 320 species listed
as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)—or 23 percent of all ESA
listings—and these protected species occur at far
higher densities on DoD lands than on any other
public lands (Stein et al. 2008). This is due in part
to exclusion: Because military areas have limited
public access, they contain large swaths of relatively
untouched habitat where species can thrive with
help from careful management (see boxes). In fact,
conservation groups such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and NatureServe praise military lands
as some of the best-preserved natural landscapes in
the country (NatureServe 2008), a feat that requires
extensive collaborative effort.
That effort took root nearly 50 years ago, when
Congress passed the Sikes Act of 1960 ( 16 USC 670a),
allowing DoD to develop cooperative fish and wildlife
plans. Amended since then, the act now requires
installations with significant natural resources to
develop Integrated Natural Resource Management
Plans (INRMPs), which establish specific goals
for managing species and ecosystems. Formed in
conjunction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(FWS) and state fish and game agencies, INRMPs
