The Sonoran Desert ecosystem was degraded by agricultural development and groundwater pumping from the 1930s to 1970s. This project sought to restore the lowland desert by reestablishing perennial shrubs. The team determined historic species composition on a study site, acquiring seeds of those species, introduce them to the site, and provide them with extra water for establishment.

The Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest (ASNF) utilized over 25 million funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to support projects that increase local employment, support forest restoration and fire mitigation, and boost local economy. Projects included forest restoration and fuels reduction, recreation and related road improvements, forest fire rehabilitation efforts, and greenhouse construction on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.

This project is assessing the role of Woody-Plant Encroachment and brush management on the carbon cycle, carbon storage potential, biodiversity, and rangeland ecosystem stability and resilience. Data collected from this project can inform land managers on costs and benefits of different brush management options and factors. 

The iconic and productive Sonoran Desert landscapes of the Tuscon Basin are threatened by Buffelgrass, an invasive species introduced to the area in the 1930s. Buffelgrass alters the fire regime and is a threat to ecosystems, and human life and property. The Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center was established in 2008 to bring stakeholders together to remove Buffelgrass effectively.  

Warming temperatures threaten native species in the Madrean Sky Islands Archipelago as plants and animals cannot migrate to higher elevation under the steep slope and finite extents. Conservation organizations collaboratively document the climate vulnerability of mountain springs and facilitates restoration work to enhance habitats and protect biodiversity.

The Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in Arizona is home to five of the rarest community types in the American Southwest. Managers constantly combat woody-shrub encroachment onto valuable grasslands, specifically the species velvet mesquite (Prosopis velutina). The Bureau of Land Management and the Nature Conservancy partnered to evaluate the condition of resources and to review monitoring protocols.  

Saguaro National Park, in the Sonoran Desert near Tuscon, Arizona, is threatened by invasive perennial grasses. These grasses outcompete native plants and heighten the risk of wildfires, a disturbance that the park’s ecosystem is not adapted to. Park managers want to remove invasive grasses and restore native species landscapes. 

USGS Western Geographic Science Center led the project to examined the effects of gabions (wire baskets filled with rocks used as dams) on vegetation in the Ciénega San Bernardino, in the Arizona, Sonora portion of the US-Mexico border, using a remote-sensing analysis coupled with field data.

The Montezuma quail’s (Cyrtonyx montezumae) primary habitat is Madrean oak woodlands. These habitats are degrading from the impacts of climate change and habitat destruction. This project aims to restore Madrean oak woodlands and Montezuma quail populations through a partnership of Sonoran Joint Venture, Borderlands Restoration Network, and Southern Arizona Quail Forever.  

The masked bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus ridgwayi), a former popular game bird, has been locally extinct in the U.S. Sonoran Desert since the 1990s due to livestock overgrazing and drought. Invasive grass species further degraded their habitat. Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge was established for the reintroduction of masked bobwhite quail and habitat restoration. 

Cuenca los Ojos (CLO) is a non-profit that preserves land and restores watersheds in the Sky Island ecoregion of the U.S. and Mexico. Sky Island contains high biodiversity, and CLO’s preserved and restored lands act as wildlife corridors and work to improve watershed health.  

The Heritage Reach is a portion of the Santa Cruz River that runs through a highly urbanized portion of Tuscon, Arizona. This area used to support a variety of wildlife but has severely degraded from urban development. In 2019, Tuscon Water began releasing treated effluent into the Reach to restore river flows. 

Following a devastating 2010 wildfire and post-fire flood outside of Flagstaff, city residents approved a $10 million bond to support forest restoration work to reduce the risk of wildfire and post-fire flooding. This bond created the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project (FWPP), which implements restoration projects like thinning and fuel reduction.  

The Fort Valley Project was an experiment designed to test forest treatments that were intended to restore natural ecological qualities and reduce the hazard of intense wildfire in the urban/wildland interface around Flagstaff, Arizona. The primary goal of the project was the reverse the degradation of ponderosa pine ecosystems by restoring their structure and function along with the natural disturbance regimes that were characteristic of their evolutionary environment.

The Fossil Creek watershed ecosystem has been drastically impacted by a diversion dam that was built in the early 1900s. The restoration of the stream course started in 1999 when Arizona Public Service (APS) signed an agreement to decommission its hydroelectric facilities along Fossil Creek.

In 2015, the Gila Watershed Partnership (GWP) began work to restore native vegetation in 200 acres of tamarisk-dominated habitat along a 54-mile stretch of the Upper Gila Watershed. The goal was to create islands of native vegetation to act as refugia for threatened and endangered species and reduce tamarisk beetle impacts on flycatcher habitat.

For over ten years, the Tucson Audubon Society has collaborated with Audubon Southwest through the Important Bird Area (IBA) program to develop a protocol that protects the Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus; CCLO). They monitored the CCLO population through volunteer-led in-person surveys and audio recordings, analyzed the conditions of cattle tanks, and documented the presence of invasive Lehmann’s lovegrass.

Tuscon, Arizona faced stormwater management problems, with increased flooding and runoff, and degraded water quality. To address these issues and improve the urban tree canopy and recycle rainwater for irrigation, the city developed the Green Streets Active Practice Guidelines. This program requires integrating green infrastructure into all publicly funded roadway projects. 

Since 2017, biologists from the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) and USFWS have conducted mechanical removal of Green Sunfish to protect native aquatic species diversity in Ash Creek, Arizona. With a rock waterfall barrier near the confluence with Trout Creek, managers and biologists isolated source populations for native fish while removing the invasive Green Sunfish.

In 2017-2018, Sky Island Alliance (SIA) developed and implemented a climate-informed process to restore pollinator population in riparian corridors of the Sky Island region. The goal was to increase pollinator forage, shelter, and continuity across the landscape while promoting biodiversity and ecosystem function.