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Link Lake, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon
© Charlie Ott |
The Northwest’s dry, fire-prone ponderosa pine and mixed conifer ecosystems are presently experiencing unnaturally severe wildfires, largely as a result of decades of fire exclusion. These fires pose a significant threat to local communities, forests, wildlife habitat and overall ecosystem health. Thus far, developing landscape-level plans to manage for these values has been difficult due to a general lack of consensus among stakeholders.
Using tools that facilitate collaborative visioning and planning, the landscapes in the Network are helping stakeholders set priorities for the restoration of ponderosa pine and dry mixed conifer ecosystems. They are also building understanding and support for planned treatments, thereby speeding up on-the-ground restoration.
Demonstration Landscapes
The Upper Deschutes Basin, the Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative, and the Applegate Watershed are the Network's demonstration landscapes.
Partners working at Oregon's 2-million-acre Upper Deschutes Basin are developing and exporting landscape assessment and prioritization tools. Partners are also working to develop a communication plan around objectives and the collaboratively-derived desired conditions for the landscape. This site is also a LANDFIRE Application project.
The Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative in Washington is helping to implement a pilot stewardship contracting project on 28,000 acres in the Naches Ranger District. The collaborative is also continuing planning efforts for an 8,000-acre, multi-ownership fuels treatment project at the Tieton/Oak Creek site.
In Oregon's Applegate Watershed, the local FLN team is working with multiple stakeholders to develop Conservation Action Plans based on social, economic and ecological values and landscape modeling tools. This group also provides technical expertise to a large collaborative that is deciding where restoration projects will occur.
Resources:
Participating Landscapes
Sprague Watershed, OR
Leader: Amy Waltz
Successful Collaboratives Workshop
Bend, OR / 13-15 November 2007
The objectives of this meeting are to:
(1) Learn about collaborative operating guidelines, and examples of successful collaborations that include federal partners and land management planning.
(2) Develop a list of successful strategies collaboratives have used to develop key operating principles.
(3) Determine the appropriate scale for principles of restoration and whether statewide principles should be pursued.
(4) Assess the effectiveness of new techniques in collaborative planning.
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