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Products from thinning treatments await a buyer at the mill in Hayfork
© The Nature Conservancy / Wendy Fulks |
Expanding from the Hayfork Basin demonstration landscape, which joined the FLN in 2006, this Network was formed in early 2008. Grounded in communities that have been pioneers in the development of Fire Safe Councils, the Network plans to used its enlarged scope to:
- establish a robust local workforce through training, capacity building and developing a consistent and high-quality program of work;
- bridge social and ideological gaps by collaborating with diverse stakeholders and forging common-ground solutions; and
- improve the economics of fuels reduction and forest restoration through innovative harvesting and utilization strategies.
Network Vision
This FLN is a venue for improving landscape-scale planning and implementation— scaling up strategies to protect and restore the valuable ecology and communities of the region through collaborative, region wide, ecologically and socially appropriate ecosystem restoration and sustainable stewardship of natural resources.
Background
The California Klamath-Siskiyou region is home to diverse ecological and human communities. These communities, and their associated values, are threatened by past and present land use practices and by the impending impacts of climate change. Fire exclusion, logging, grazing and mining have significantly altered historical fire regimes and forest ecosystem structures in this biologically rich part of northwestern California. As in much of the American West, the area is seeing uncharacteristically large, stand-replacing wildfires that threaten both ecological values and human communities. Although fires burn at their historical frequencies, their impacts are increasing in severity and scale. Evacuations have become commonplace summer events due to wildfire threats, and the ecosystem impacts are equally troubling. Re-burn events, where high-intensity fires burn over the same areas at short return intervals, are causing parts of the landscape to convert from forests to shrub, brush or grassland systems.
Landscape-scale forest restoration is critical to conserving threatened ecosystem values as well as to the imperatives of human health and safety. This learning network formed so that a unified vision and effective action can be developed in this area of extremely diverse and complex ecology, numerous social pressures, and multiple-agency land ownership. Ultimately the restoration of this system depends on striking a balance that can be sustained as social values, budgets and climates continue to change.
Demonstration Landscape
Participating Landscapes
Leader: Nick Goulette
The State of Our Forests Conference / Weaverville, CA
8-9 July 2009
This conference built on the long history of collaboration and partnership in the region to:
(1) share learning from 2008 fire events;
(2) explore the current scientific understanding of regional fire ecology in the context of forest management, fire management, climate and ecosystem services;
(3) share approaches to landscape-scale forest and fire planning;
(4) explore opportunities for strengthening partnerships and collaboration if future forest and fire planning efforts; and
(5) set partnership goals for planning, development and networking in the Klamath-Siskiyou region through the FLN.
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