The landscapes of Taylor Park provide a suite of important ecological values and ecosystem services, including biological diversity, wildlife, timber production, livestock grazing, recreation, carbon storage, and hydrological functions. A growing body of evidence highlights increasing forest vulnerability to changing climate and disturbance regimes. Accordingly, this area is subject to active, landscape-scale management intended to support forest resilience. Overarching management objectives for Taylor Park include: 

1. Increase the forest’s ability to respond to multiple and interactive forest stressors including climate change, drought, insect attack, and/or disease
2. Treat stands to improve forest health using commercial harvest, non-commercial, and prescribed fire treatments, as appropriate, to the site-specific situation
3. Reduce fuels in the wildland-urban interface to allow for the facilitation of natural fire processes on the landscape
4. Provide wood products for the local economy, which relies on wood fiber harvested sustainably from public lands

A team of natural resource specialists from the Taylor Park region, regional managers, and scientists came together for a three-day workshop in July 2022 to develop the study design for the ASCC project site. The team developed a set of Desired Future Condition statements, Objectives, and Tactics for each major climate adaptation trajectory (resistance, resilience, transition). These three trajectories are briefly summarized below:

Resistance:

• Retention of lodgepole pine on landscape
• Reduce stand density
• Reduce fuel continuity and ladder fuels
• Maintain or increase water holding capacity/snowpack
• Maintain Engelmann Spruce & Subalpine Fir for habitat diversity (goshawk habitat and nesting sites and snowshoe hare habitat)
• Resistance to aridification, low intensity fire, and mountain pine beetle
• Maintain access to roads for recreation & operation
• Maintain snags for wildlife / cavity nesting
• Protect heritage sites

Resilience:

• Increase species, structural diversity, & spatial heterogeneity
• Maintain lodgepole pine as dominant species
• Prevent or reduce establishment of invasives
• Promote water storage and organic soil retention
• Increase resilience to fire and pest
• Retain some wildlife trees/character trees
• Maintain access to roads for recreation & operation
• Maintain Engelmann Spruce & Subalpine Fir to protect goshawk habitat and nesting sites
• Maintain snags for wildlife / cavity nesting
• Protect heritage sites

Transition:

• Promote ecological conditions found in Cochetopa Park, a similar high-elevation basin located south of Gunnison, but which is drier and warmer
• As best as possible, simulate year 2100 projected conditions by 2050
• Transition away from a lodgepole pine dominated forest to lower-elevation, dry mixed conifer forest (maintain some lodgepole)
• Increase species, structural diversity, & spatial heterogeneity
• Create large 10-acre openings
• Promote aridification, heat, and fire-adapted species (native and novel)
• Prevent or reduce establishment of invasives
• Maintain access to roads for recreation & operation
• Maintain snags for wildlife / cavity nesting
• Protect heritage sites