Sentinel landscapes: a new partnership targets the land around military bases.

• Author: Schultz, Jennifer
• Position: MILITARY AFFAIRS - Sentinel Landscapes Partnership

At one time, most of our nation's military installations were located in rural areas, far from the subdivisions and shopping malls of today. The rapid pace of development in recent years, however, is pushing communities closer to perimeter fences, challenging the military's access to lands and airspace needed for training.

Encroachment--development that's incompatible with military needs--can limit the use of training ranges, present obstacles to low-flying aircraft, cause light pollution that interferes with night training and degrade communication frequencies.

Meanwhile, working lands and wildlife habitat near bases are threatened, too. Lands used for farming, ranching and forestry are vital to sustaining agricultural productivity and safeguarding natural resources. Despite a variety of state programs, the country annually loses 1 million acres of farmland to development. In addition, the loss of wildlife habitat is transforming military bases into unlikely refuges for more than 300 threatened and endangered species.

A Partnership Is Born

Is there a solution that can satisfy these competing interests? The U.S. Interior Department, along with state, local and private actors, is hoping a new effort called the Sentinel Landscapes Partnership will be a win-win for all involved.

The program's goals are to protect working lands, preserve wildlife habitat and sustain military readiness by focusing on places where these priorities overlap. It will reward landowners for management practices that benefit the land and their own livelihoods while helping to sustain military training ranges and airspace.

The theory is being tested at the partnership's first site: Joint Base Lewis-McChord, located in the heart of Washington's Puget Sound region. It's the largest military installation on the West Coast, a top employer in the state and a major contributor to the local economy.

But why the base was chosen as the first Sentinel Landscape is its very fragile prairie ecosystem. Troops train with live fire, combat vehicles roam the land and enormous C-17 transport planes fly directly to and from areas of conflict on land that is home to a wide array of plants and animals at risk of extinction.

The streaked horned lark, Mazama pocket gopher and Taylor's checkerspot butterfly survive on only 3 percent of the historic 91,000-acre prairie habitat that remains, most of it inside the 414,000-acre base.

Before the land surrounding the base was chosen for the...