The valley is a place where the growing of food is used as a method of open space conservation, and conservation projects are considered essential to ranching practices. The open space created by Altar Valley agricultural operations is essential to providing important habitat connectivity by maintaining the only undeveloped corridor linking western deserts to the westernmost Sky Islands mountain tops. Countless wildlife species, including threatened or endangered species like the Chiricahua leopard frog, the jaguar, and the masked bobwhite quail, move through the habitat provided by the working landscape of the Altar Valley.

The Altar Valley is also important to open space values of the greater Tucson community. Pima County considers the Altar Valley watershed a key element of its regional Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan (2000). The County invested approximately $47 million via voter-supported bonds to purchase just over 96,000 acres of deeded land and/or federal and State Trust leases. Pima County works with agricultural land owners to manage County conservation lands, via agreements addressing agricultural, land protection, and species and habitat concerns.

Part of what makes the Altar Valley so special is the community, and the commitment of so many stakeholders to the future of the valley. With multiple stakeholders invested in the future of the Altar Valley, collaborative conservation is more essential than ever. Land and resource management today is all about partnerships. Much of the work that they Alliance does is to bring community partners together around on-the-ground projects to find solutions to complex problems. Our work would not be possible without investments of time and resources by countless partners, who can be found here.

Each year, the Alliance gathers Altar Valley stakeholders together for a day of learning and celebration at the annual Altar Valley Community Meeting. This meeting is held at a ranch on the north end of the valley. Attendees include folks that are regularly engaged in Altar Valley conservation, as well as individuals interested in learning about the Altar Valley for the first time. It is an opportunity for ranchers, scientists, and agency partners to share about their activities in the valley. Most of all, it is a day of networking and an opportunity for people to gather face-to-face with their Altar Valley peers.

The use of sound science is a fundamental tenet to the work of the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance. Much of the work of the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance is done through collaborative decision making, and it is imperative that conversations and decisions are being guided by sound science. The Alliance is committed to using the Altar Valley as an outdoor laboratory to aid in new scientific knowledge.

The Alliance established the Science Advisory Board in 2010, to advise and guide the Alliance Board of Directors in steering the Alliance’s science program. The Science Advisory Board convenes quarterly and advises informally on an as-needed basis. The Science Advisory Board helped create and continually updates two important documents that guide research in the Altar Valley: the AVCA Science Agenda and the Research Protocol for the Altar Valley Watershed. The AVCA Science Agenda is designed to encourage research about topics that have on-the-ground application for those living and working in the Altar Valley. The Research Protocol for the Altar Valley Watershed is intended to facilitate cooperative attitudes and mutual respect among the science community and landowners and managers in the Altar Valley.

The Science Advisory Board also administers the Altar Valley Research Fellowship, which grants funding to support scientific research in the Altar Valley. AVCA is currently soliciting applications for Fellowship. For information on how to apply, please view the Request for Proposals or send an email.

In the spring of 2019, the Jackrabbit Working Group (led by Kerry Baldwin and Dave Brown) was awarded a research fellowship to explore the diet of antelope jackrabbit. The antelope jackrabbit (Lepus alleni) is an iconic and relic desert grassland wildlife species in the Altar Valley; yet little research has been done on the jackrabbit in the previous 50 years. This study is generating information about the vegetation species needed by jackrabbits by testing the DNA of food the jackrabbits have eaten. Having a more extensive understanding of the diet and preferences of the antelope jackrabbit will help inform management decisions that could potentially impact habitat characteristics for the antelope jackrabbit and facilitate the development of best management practices that accomplish land management needs while protecting sustainable jackrabbit populations.

Morgan Pfander received the third Altar Valley Research Fellowship, designed to encourage scientific research in the Altar Valley watershed. Ms. Pfander was an independent consultant with a B.S. in Natural Resources and and B.A. in International Studies from the University of Arizona. She worked as a Wildlife Technician and Range Technician for the USDA Forest Service, BLM, and U.S. Geological Survey throughout the West. She was also trained in Data Entry, Analysis and Proofing. The goal of this fellowship was to create a bibliography of published and unpublished material on the Altar Valley, as identified in the Research Agenda that was created by the Alliance’s Scientific Advisory Board. The collection was included as the Altar Valley Collection in the international database of the Rangelands Network/Global Rangelands/Rangelands West; see globalrangelands.org. The Rangelands Network is an international consortium of 19 land-grant universities from 19 U.S. states, Australia, and Mexico that has created and maintains portals and a database of rangelands resources that includes more than “12,000 journal articles, websites, images, databases, videos, maps, reports, and decision making/educational tools.” Ms. Pfander surveyed professional journals, online databases and other resources for articles about, or of interest, to the Alliance, wrote a brief summary, and enter the summary and bibliographic information into the Altar Valley Collection of the Rangelands Network/Global Rangelands/Rangelands West. The Alliance continues to regularly add to the Altar Valley Collection.

University of Arizona cultural anthropology PhD student David Seibert was awarded the second annual Altar Valley Research Fellowship, designed to encourage scientific research in the Altar Valley watershed. Mr. Seibert worked closely with the Alliance as its Restoration Coordinator, and designed a project entitled “Collaborative Conservation through Erosion Control and Fire in Altar Valley.” He received extensive training in wildland fire behavior, policy, and management at the Wildland Fire and Incident Management Academy in Prescott, Arizona, and in hydrology, sedimentology, and watershed monitoring during a Rosgen Applied Fluvial Geomorphology workshop, held at the Watershed Conservation Research Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Mr. Seibert applied the training and methods to ecological restoration projects designed by the Alliance. The primary goal of the project was to develop a suite of practices for conducting concurrent prescribed fire and erosion control planning, execution, and monitoring that also coordinated the needs of valley landowners with the efforts of Alliance partners such as Pima County, The Nature Conservancy, and the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

University of Arizona College of Life Sciences graduate student Greg Butler received the first Altar Valley Research Fellowship, a $5000 award to encourage scientific research in the Altar Valley watershed. Mr. Butler’s project was entitled “Evaluating the Effects of Grazing Land Conservation Practices on Southwestern Watersheds’ Socio-Economic Aspects of Producer Adoption”. The goal of the project was to develop web-based tools that estimate the combined effect of grazing land conservation practices and drought on watershed health. A computer-based tool called an Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment tool for Rangelands (AGWA-R) was used to provide information on the effects of grazing land conservation practices as well as simulated optimal combination of conservation practices based on specific watersheds.

The Alliance works to disseminate scientific knowledge to land managers, researchers, and the general public. Pertinent research to the Altar Valley helps to inform decisions on the ground, and lay the foundation for future research. In order to better share existing research, the Alliance created the Altar Valley Collection in the international database of the Rangelands Network/Global Rangelands/Rangelands West. The Rangelands Network is an international consortium of 19 land-grant universities from 19 U.S. states, Australia, and Mexico that has created and maintains portals and a database of rangelands resources that includes more than “12,000 journal articles, websites, images, databases, videos, maps, reports, and decision making/educational tools.” The Altar Valley Collection is a bibliography of published and unpublished material about the Altar Valley from professional journals, on-line databases, and other resources. The Alliance continues to regularly add to the Altar Valley Collection.

Conservation

The Alliance is essential to facilitating on-the-ground, collaborative conservation in the Altar Valley. Countless hours have been invested in the watershed health of the Altar Valley by individuals and agencies who recognize the importance of cross-boundary thinking in conserving the valley as an open landscape for future generations. Pima County considers the Altar Valley watershed a key element of its regional Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan (2000). Ranchers in the valley have made the Altar Valley a working landscape – a place where the growing of food is used as a method of open space conservation, and conservation projects are considered essential to ranching practices.

Operations

The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance is a collaborative conservation organization founded in 1995, and incorporated as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in 2000. Seats on the Alliance’s Board of Directors are open to a single representative from each agricultural operation in the Altar Valley, along with three community representatives. The Alliance has part-time staff running the day-to-day operations of the organization. The Alliance’s Science Advisory Board serves to advise and guide the Alliance Board of Directors in steering the Alliance’s science program.

The Alliance’s work would not be possible without our numerous partners. Many of these partners are agencies with responsibilities in the Altar Valley watershed, but many of them are also drawn in by the desire to invest in the open landscape of the valley. The list of our partners can be found here. Many of these partners are assisting in the Altar Valley Watershed Plan via participation in the Watershed Working Group, and numerous partners have participated in our Altar Valley Fire Management team throughout the years.

You can learn more about the projects undertaken by the Alliance here.

Publications put out by the Alliance can be found here.