Join Us for a Community Conversation!

The Oakridge-Westfir Tree Planting festival is around the corner and the SWFC will be hosting an Open House at Greenwaters Park Sunday followed by an Oregon Humanities discussion about stewarding our public forests: "Seeing the Forest". Through the Conversation Project, Oregon Humanities offers free programs that engage community members in thoughtful, challenging conversations about ideas critical to our daily lives and our state's future. 

Conversation Topic

Join us to talk together about what it means to live in an rural community surrounded by forests, how residents value the forests we live in, along with discussing how the downturn in the timber economy affected Oakridge and Westfir and how we are moving forward.

When:
Sunday May 6th
5:00 - 6:30 PM

Address:
48362 Highway 58
Oakridge OR 97463

To participate in this free community discussion, please click here to RSVP

Meet the Host

Mariah Acton is a soon-to-be graduate from the University of Oregon where her master’s work focuses at the intersection of conflict resolution, nonprofit management, and public administration. As a recent social science researcher for the US Forest Service and a volunteer facilitator with forest collaboratives in the southern Willamette Valley, she recognizes that this is an exciting time for public-driven, sustainable forest management, and she appreciates that there are more conversations to be had. 

Acton’s program is made possible by funding from Oregon Humanities, which connects Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities. More information about Oregon Humanities’ programs and publications, which include the Conversation Project, Think & Drink, Humanity in Perspective, Public Program Grants, Responsive Program Grants, and Oregon Humanities magazine, can be found at oregonhumanities.org. Oregon Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a partner of the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Open House - Learn More About SWFC

The Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative is hosting an Open House Sunday May 6th, from 2:30 - 5:00 at Greenwaters Park Community Building. We invite you to take this opportunity to learn about our organization and the projects we are working on in the forest that surrounds you!

At our Open House you can learn more about:

• How the Implementation Advisory Committee makes collaborative recommendations to the Forest Service for Stewardship Contract Projects that benefit forest health and contribute to local economies. Recommendations include the boundaries for local workforce area and restoration work such as trail maintenance, road maintenance, weed extraction, stream improvements, etc.

  Recent projects include the Rock and Burnt timber sales.

• The next steps the Rigdon Collaboration Committee will take as the Rigdon Collaborative Landscape Project moves forward.

• Biomass market opportunities for Oakridge, and how forest byproduct manufacturing could create jobs and boost local economy. 

• How the Good Neighbor Authority partnership between the State of Oregon and the Forest Service can increase the pace, scale, and quality of restoration on federal lands, support local economies, and engage local communities through collaboration.

• Community Wildfire Preparedness: What are the risks and preventative measures the Forest Service and our community is undertaking to mitigate the threat of wildfires?

Some of you may be wondering - What is a Forest Collaborative?

Over the last two decades there has been a new approach to public lands management, that approach requires collaboration as a means of problem solving. This approach works because it brings together a diverse group of stakeholders - small business owners, elected officials, recreation enthusiasts, environmentalists, timber industry workers, state and federal agency representatives. As a group the collaboration members develop recommendations to the Forest Service and other land management agencies to advance ecologically sound forest and watershed management that also benefits local communities and their economies!