The wide-open sagebrush valleys east of the Sierras are stunning. Not only do they support agricultural landowners, recreation lovers and rural communities, they are also home to more than 350 species of conservation concern.

Unfortunately, though, our valuable sagebrush country is disappearing … fast.

We’re losing over a million acres of sagebrush lands each year in America, according to research co-authored by 70+ experts published this month in a special issue of Rangeland Ecology & Management. More than 90 percent of these losses stem from three main threats: invasive annual grasses, encroaching conifers, and wildfire.

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Our research also shows that “business as usual” management won’t work if we want to stop these losses and save the sagebrush biome. We have to start doing things differently.

Why does saving this biome matter? Because people and wildlife alike depend on keeping sagebrush rangelands healthy. Anyone who lives in or near sagebrush country is impacted by the same set of common threats. Who in Northern California hasn’t suffered from record-setting rangeland fires, which are often fueled by invasive grasses or encroaching conifers?

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The sagebrush biome is also globally significant, as one of the most intact ecosystems left on Earth and the largest contiguous open space left in the Lower 48. We don’t want it to vanish on our watch.

So, how do we prevent losing more of the sagebrush range along with all the ecosystem services, wildlife habitat, and open space that it provides?

Right now, most of our collective conservation actions are taking place in degraded sagebrush landscapes – the places that have already fallen prey to invading weeds, trees, or wildfires. We’re spending millions of dollars trying to restore damaged lands back to a semblance of what they once were.

Instead, these new studies show that we need to devote most of our resources to protecting core sagebrush areas that are still intact and healthy. This approach is 80 to 90 percent effective at stopping landscape decline, giving us the most bang for our conservation buck.

Our research shows that if we maintain the “business as usual” approach to conservation of investing in degraded landscapes, we would need to increase current conservation investments by ten fold to stop the loss of core sagebrush areas. But if we instead pivot toward defending core areas from looming threats, we are in a much better position to save the biome. By working together across the biome, we can funnel conservation dollars where it matters most, to work smarter, not harder.

Indeed, there is hope for the sagebrush biome. This research is a wake-up call that we need to shift our approach. But it also gives land managers and decision-makers a path forward, and highlights where collaborative, large-scale actions are already protecting our last, best sagebrush. Advances in spatial targeting and the use of satellite imagery are pinpointing where else to defend and grow core areas, helping us prioritize conservation in areas that will have the greatest impact on saving the biome.

The “defend the core” approach is already working where it’s in play. People in local communities are partnering across property boundaries to conserve intact sagebrush. And conserving core sagebrush areas is synonymous with conserving at-risk, sagebrush-dependent wildlife.

Across the West, sage grouse populations have remained stable in core sagebrush areas, but dropped drastically – by 64% – in degraded sagebrush landscapes. On the California-Oregon border, the abundance of sagebrush songbirds has doubled in the Warner Mountains, thanks to large-scale conifer removal projects that protect core wildlife habitat.

These positive outcomes tell us that where we do our conservation matters – and it matters a lot. If our goal is to save the “sagebrush sea” and all of the wildlife and human communities it supports, it’s time to make a concerted shift toward protecting core areas first, rather than continuing to funnel most of our resources into degraded lands.

We have the capacity, information, and technical tools in hand to make this shift. Let’s use them to save our vital sagebrush country before it’s too late.