The role of the Policy Analysis Center for Western Public Lands is to provide integrated social, economic and ecological analyses of public land policies that affect communities in the West. Its mission is to help rural communities, policy makers, resource managers, resource users and others understand, analyze and engage effectively in the public-land policy process. Our general objective is to identify a set of short-run (three to five years) policy alternatives that are based on a synthesis of empirical research into the needs of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) and its relationship to the sagebrush system. In other words, based on what we know from research, we try to identify the best set of policy alternatives for maintaining and increasing sage-grouse populations on public lands that policy makers could implement and expect some results within a three- to five-year time frame.