• The 35th Headwaters Conference

    Generational Resiliency: Agriculture in the Gunnison Basin

    October 25-26, 2024


    Learn more and register!

  • Fellowship Opportunities

    The Center for Public Lands partners with a number of organizations and agencies to provide fellowship opportunities for students in Western Colorado University’s Master in Environmental Management and Master of Science in Ecology programs, as well as Western’s undergraduate Environment and Sustainability major and Public Lands emphasis. For additional fellowship opportunities with Western’s Masters of Environmental Management, visit the program’s website.

    See Fellowship Opportunities

  • Recent Taylor Park Field Trip

    The Taylor Park AMG hosted its annual field trip on Tuesday, August 27, 2024! This year's event took place at the Lottis Creek Campground and sites around Spring Creek, with presentations provided by staff of the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado State Forest Service. Attendees discussed how ongoing and planned vegetation management relates to controlling non-native vegetation, removing fuels and creating fuel breaks, preserving the scenic qualities of developed recreation sites, and more! 

    Learn more about the Taylor Park Vegetation Management Project, including presentations, meeting recordings, and information about how to comment!

  • Wilderness RX Synthesis Paper Now Available.

    The Center for Public Lands in partnership with the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute is releasing a synthesis paper titled Prescribed Fire and U.S. Wilderness Areas: Barriers and Opportunities for Wilderness Fire Management in a Time of Change. The paper brings together research and the discussions of fire and wilderness experts from the Wilderness and Fire Workshop held in Gunnison, CO in December 2022.

    Wilderness RX Synthesis Paper Click HERE.

The Center for
Public Lands

at Western Colorado University is a community of thoughtful future leaders who have come together from diverse fields to share expertise and collaborate on thorny public lands and natural resources challenges.

Recent Events

Featured
35th Annual Headwaters Conference
Taylor Park Adaptive Management Group (AMG) Field Trip
3 ORISE Fellow positions now open at NRS

We work closest with Western’s MS in Ecology and Master in Environmental Management degrees.

Our goal is to complement student academic requirements by providing structured workforce training and applied project opportunities with a variety of employers such public lands agencies or non-profits.

Western faculty + Center for Public Lands staff have cultivated a network of partners excited to work with students on immersive, applied projects.

Student projects have included working with remote cameras to monitor and study backcountry winter recreation patterns to help the community of Crested Butte better understand recreation use patterns, or monitor invasive species in designated wilderness areas for the U.S. Forest to improving carbon sequestration on private rangelands.