The UWF Partners with the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape
- isobel557
- Apr 10
- 4 min read
By Gentry Hale
In northern Utah, where military readiness and wildlife conservation needs intersect on one of the most threatened ecosystems in the country, a unique collaboration has taken shape. The Utah Wildlife Federation has partnered with the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape (GSLSL), a newly designated initiative that brings together an array of unlikely allies to protect critical landscapes. As Utah’s population grows and development pressures mount, this collaboration offers a way to safeguard some of the region’s most vulnerable landscapes while protecting military training grounds.
“I learned to photograph and love birds out at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge,” said
Shauna Hart, an award-winning photographer who aims to capture the intersection between
land, wildlife, and conservation through her work. When she began taking wildlife portraits six years ago, her husband suggested she learn how to photograph birds in flight at the refuge to hone her craft.
She has since fallen in love with the refuge. “It's magical there,” she said. “It's so rich and
bio-diverse in wildlife.” Now, depending on the season, Hart can be found on the refuge multiple days a week, taking photos, guiding tours, and enjoying the landscape and its conservational value.
Hart’s deep connection to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge at the northern tip of the Great Salt Lake is what makes the new partnership between the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape and the Utah Wildlife Federation extra special for her—a “passion project,” she said. She is a board member of the Utah Wildlife Federation and represents the organization in its new partnership with the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape.
The GSLSL is a new designation in northern Utah that brings together federal, state, private and local partners to help preserve wildlife habitat, agricultural lands, and military readiness. The GSLSL, established in March of 2024, spans over 2.7 million acres, covering Hill Air Force
Base, Camp Williams, Tooele Army Depot, and Air Force Little Mountain Test Facility.
Over the last decade, 18 Sentinel Landscapes have been established across the U.S. to
promote sustainable land use around military installations while protecting natural resources,
conserving habitats, strengthening agricultural and forestry economies, expanding public land access, and addressing adverse environmental conditions.
Rather than providing direct funding, Sentinel Landscapes facilitates partnerships and offers
priority access to funding through such federal programs as Readiness and Environmental
Protection Integration (REPI) with the Department of Defense. Projects range from wildfire mitigation and habitat restoration to water management and conservation easements for private landowners.
The Sentinel Landscapes program, created through a partnership between the Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior and Federal Emergency
Management Agency, is designed to connect agencies, governments, NGOs, landowners,
conservation groups, and land managers—stakeholders who might not typically collaborate.
“It creates a new synergy in preexisting partnerships and puts more disparate partners together to be able to come together for mutually shared outcomes,” said Marisa Weinberg, the program manager and coordinator for GSLSL. “It's expansive and all-encompassing.”
The GSLSL designation is timely, as population growth has caused increasing encroachment on Utah’s military installations, limiting training practices and destroying vital wildlife habitat. “The GSLSL brings a new level of awareness that many often overlook...This broader awareness is vividly demonstrated when you look at the GSLSL map,” said Bettina Cameron, president of the Eagle Mountain Nature and Wildlife Alliance, another GSLSL partner.
The GSLSL map was strategically plotted to not only encompass four of Utah’s six major military installations but also some of the most critical waterfowl habitats in all of North America, including the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge as well as the various vital wetlands on the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake. A critical stopover point for both the Pacific and Central Flyways, this area provides habitat for hundreds of bird species.
Years of drought, water diversions and climate variations have caused the Great Salt Lake to
reach record-low water levels, threatening an ecosystem relied on by millions–from brine shrimp and brine flies to migratory birds from across the world. With water levels continuing to shrink, species across the world are at risk of ecological collapse, causing a need for initiatives like the GSLSL. Chelsea Duke, wildlife lands coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, emphasized how important the collaboration is for local wildlife, saying that it includes “waterfowl management areas, wetlands, Utah Lake, a portion of a sage grouse management area and important big game corridors.”
For the Utah Wildlife Federation, teaming up with the GSLSL to help protect this area and other essential wildlife habitats was a natural fit. Having the expertise of the UWF at the table will help inform GSLSL on where to prioritize project work for wildlife species, Weinberg said. “That connection to Utah's wildlife is critical because I am not a wildlife expert.The goal is to bring the right wildlife-interested partners together at the right time to be able to complement each other's work.”
The partnership will also allow UWF to engage with partners it has not worked with before,
opening the door to new connections and structuring effective conversations between them,
which is what Weinberg calls the “unique edge” of this program.
With the designation now in place, the GSLSL's next steps involve securing funding, engaging landowners, establishing an implementation plan, and supporting conservation projects that align with the program’s core goals. The program currently has over 40 partners and continues to grow.
“It is exciting to see just in the first couple months the types of opportunities that we might get with this designation,” said Weinberg. “And it's exciting for the Great Salt Lake because we need to add more tools to our toolbox. We all have a shared interest in the lake and it's critical that we preserve it.”
As Hart walks the trails of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge with her camera in hand, she
takes pride in knowing that the Utah Wildlife Federation is actively playing a role in protecting the place that she loves most, she said. “[The partnership] is a natural hand and glove fit for helping wildlife thrive in Utah, which is my goal, and the goal of the Utah Wildlife Federation.”
About the Author:
Gentry Hale is an environmental journalist and travel writer based in Salt Lake City, Utah,
specializing in conservation, outdoor recreation and wildlife management. A lifelong adventurer, she spends her free time traveling, snowboarding and hiking with her German Shorthaired Pointer, Gucci. Follow her work at gentryhale.com.
