Governor Brown visits West Bear Project
On Thursday, April 29, 2021, members of the Rogue Forest Partners, along with County and municipal fire Chiefs were honored to host Oregon Governor Kate Brown for a site visit to part of the West Bear All-Lands Restoration Project.
The group provided an overview of this growing ecological fuels reduction and community wildfire mitigation project that will be taking place over the next 5 years across 5,500 acres—in the foothills of Talent, Phoenix, South Medford, and Jacksonville. Participants also shared with Governor Brown the broader efforts by the Rogue Forest Partners to conduct forest restoration and hazardous fuels reduction across other strategic Rogue Valley sites at high risk of fire danger.
Lomakatsi Restoration Project’s 30-person restoration workforce introduced themselves after a day of ecological fuels reduction work on the private property that was funded by a recent $500,000 award—the largest in the state—from Oregon Department of Forestry to Lomakatsi as part of a state-wide investment in community wildfire protection led by Governor Brown.
We are grateful for the support of Governor Brown and our many partners for making this important work possible! A big thank you to the landowners and all our partners in attendance yesterday: Oregon Department of Forestry, Jackson County Fire District Five, Jacksonville Fire Department, Southern Oregon Forest Restoration Collaborative, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Sustainable Northwest, Lomakatsi Restoration Project, and The Nature Conservancy.
