The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced more than $15 million in federal funding will be used for landscape restoration at two sites in Arizona.
The work is being led by the Bureau of Land Management and includes the 3-million-acre Yanawant area north of the Grand Canyon.
The agency says the diverse landscape features desert scrub to ponderosa pine forests.
The planned 5-and-a-half-million dollars in work will restore habitat, improve drought resilience and ecosystem health and reduce wildfire danger by reducing fuel loads and removing invasive species.
In addition, nearly $10 million will support biodiversity and defend against drought and wildfire in southern Arizona’s sky islands that include Saguaro National Park and the Huachuca Mountains.
In all, more than $160 million from the project will support 21 projects in 11 western states.