Jonathan Long

Address:
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension
PO Box 627
Peach Springs, AZ 86437-0627

Current Research Interests

• Assessment and restoration of
  riparian ecosystem
• Participatory research with rural and indigenous communities
• The biogeography of rare species in the White Mountains
• Integrating restoration of cultural and ecological values on tribal lands
• Understanding landscape controls on habitat for aquatic plant and wildlife species
• Evaluating effects of wildfires on wetlands and streams in the White Mountains
• Designing and evaluating treatments for degraded riparian ecosystems
• Monitoring stream conditions through time and across landscape types
• Advancing community-based forestry through participatory research and democratization of science

Current Research

Responsibilities for the Project include implementing cooperative research efforts and technology transfer under the Memorandum of Understanding between the Research station and the white Mountain apache Tribe.

Landscape Influences on Riparian Conditions and Rare Species:

• To ensure the sustainability of streams and wetlands, we need to determine whether our activities are improving or degrading the health of those ecosystems.
• To serve as a benchmark for comparisons, we try to identify reference systems that are naturally healthy. However, natural diversity makes it hard to know whether land use accounts for differences between streams. Much of our research focuses on the White Mountains, which is very diverse geologically and topographically due to the complex evolution of the landscape surrounding the central volcano of Mount Baldy. Many species endemic to the southwestern mountains depend on these streams, including the Apache trout, loach minnow and the Arizona willow.
• To understand how the streams in this region have responded to management activities, we need to understand how the natural variability of the region regulates their potential.

-Cibecue Ecological Education Project

Jonathan is currently assisting the Cibecue Community School with a historical ecology project entitled, “Ndee bini’ bida’ilzaah,” or Pictures of Apache land. High school and college students are visiting culturally important wetlands that were photographed in the 1960s. The students are making repeat photographs and ecological inventories to document changes that have taken place in the past several decades. Through interviews with elders in their community, the students will consider causes of ecological degradation and identify what steps should be taken to restore these important places.

-Placing riffle formations to restore stream functions in a wet meadow

This link will provide you with information regarding restoring the wet meadows of Pacheta Cienega which lies on the beautiful lands of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in the high country of east-central Arizona.

-Collaborative Research on Fire Effects

The massive Rodeo-Chediski wildfire scorched nearly one-half million acres along the Mogollon Rim in eastern Arizona. That land forms the headwaters of creeks that flow through small communities on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. Consequently, the fire damaged many places of cultural and ecological significance to tribal members. Project RWU-4302 is engaged in helping the Tribe to stabilize and restore many of those places, which include springs and wetlands. Because these places have special cultural values, tribal members work with the communities to use traditional knowledge in designing appropriate treatments. Working together, we have refined techniques that employ native rock and plant materials in accordance with traditional erosion control practices. Combined with fencing to reduce the impacts from large animals, these treatments have resulted in dramatic recoveries of wetland vigor and stability. As one of our tribal colleagues has explained, if we have faith and a good heart, these places will show us that they have life within them.

Jonathan's Curriculum Vita

Jonathan's Publication list