Pinyon-juniper woodlands are the primary vegetation type managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on the Colorado Plateau, covering over 35% of its surface. These woodlands, composed of pinyon pine and juniper trees, have been increasing in density and extent over the past century, and thereby displacing historic grassland vegetation and changing historic fire regimes. In response to the encroachment of pinyon-juniper woodlands, the BLM has been actively treating managed lands using a variety of methods.

In 2000, the BLM Colorado Plateau Science Committee developed a Colorado Plateau Pinyon-Juniper Strategy, which outlined the need for synthesizing and collecting regional information to better understand pinyon-juniper communities, the dynamics of encroachment, and long-term management strategies. PJ-WOOD, developed by the Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research (MPCER) at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in collaboration with the BLM and the NBII, is a research database that archives pinyon-juniper manipulations on Bureau of Land Management lands across the Colorado Plateau. Researchers and managers may publicly access the treatment data including photos or link to downloadable GIS data and a dynamic map search. PJ-WOOD contains both relational and GIS databases of treatment that will facilitate research, landscape level analyses, and regional land management planning. This project supports SWIN's goals to provide access to biological databases and information tools, and furthers its focus on specific natural resource issues relevant to the Southwest region.

To visit the PJ-WOOD website, click here.