The money comes from CNHA’s Discovery Pool, a grant program that has been operating since 2008, said CNHA Executive Director Cindy Hardgrave.
“We’re excited to be able to do this,” she said.
The CNHA board chose two projects by the Forest Service and one apiece by the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service for funding. Seven grant applications were received, Hardgrave said.
“Funding depends on how much money we have accumulated,” Hardgrave said. “We try to keep a certain amount in reserve for the future.”
This year’s grant winners are:
• Forest Service, $11,873 to study distance and temperature effects on pika forage.
The study will focus on the small relative of the rabbit, which CNHA referred to as a “canary in the coal mine” in a news release. Researchers will try to determine how the pika and its many forage plant species respond to increasing temperatures due to global warming, according to the news release.
• Bureau of Land Management, $18,625 to document perishable artifacts at the Museum of the American Indian. The project will survey and photograph approximately 400 archaeological textiles, baskets, wooden implements, hides and other perishable artifacts collected during the 1890s, primarily from the Grand Gulch area in southeast Utah and other federal lands now managed by the BLM’s Monitcello Field Office.
• National Park Service, $15,500 for phase two analysis of ceramic shard collections from Hovenweep National Monument. Basic analysis of approximately 2,500 additional shards in the collection will be completed, according to the news release.
• Forest Service, $12,779 for “Gardeners and Gatekeepers: Pueblo I Community Study II.” The goal is to gain more field data from a selection of important Pueblo I period ancestral Puebloan sites within the Monticello Ranger District of the Manti-La Sal National Forest.
The project will help understand the chronology, social interaction, economy and settlement in the area, the news release said.
Money from sales of books and other items through the CNHA website and the association’s annual auction goes toward the Discovery Pool, Hardgrave said. In addition, a percentage of money from the sale of items at CNHA stores at the Moab Information Center and the national parks in this region is given directly to agencies for various projects.
“We give back to our partners in the range of $500,000 per year,” she said.