Lake County All Lands Restoration Initiative FIP
Project Description
The Lake County Umbrella Watershed Council is a member of the Klamath Lake Forest Health Partnership (check out their website for more details https://www.klfhp.org/). Together we applied for a Focused Investment Partnership (FIP) grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB). We were finally awarded this grant opportunity in the spring of 2024. This grant covers a 6 year period with $4 million per biennium for Dry-Type Forest Habitat.
The partnership envisions utilizing this funding to create a healthy, resilient, and functional
forest landscape maintained with fire as an ecological process, while mitigating the threat of high severity wildfire to dry forests, fish and wildlife habitat, water quality, and the surrounding
human communities. The ecological outcomes align with the Dry-Type Forest Habitat OWEB priority and include: developing a short- and long-term strategy for prescribed fire to re-establish the historical frequency of fire; engaging with private landowners to increase public knowledge of dry forest restoration principles and techniques; restoring dry forest landscape resiliency by re-establishing open and variable forest structure and reducing fuel loading; restoring healthy aspen, meadow, and shrub-steppe habitats by reducing encroaching conifers and juniper; and re-introducing prescribed fire as a key ecological process. These outcomes would be accomplished through strategic thinning, prescribed fire, and noxious weed treatments completed by the core partners.
Project Partners
Our core partners include Klamath-Lake Forest Health Partnership (KLFHP), Lake County Umbrella Watershed Council (LCUWC), Fremont-Winema National Forest (USFS), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), Oregon State University (OSU Extension), Lake County Resources Initiative (LCRI), Lake County Cooperative Weed Management Area (Lake County CWMA), Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and the University of Oregon (UO).
Project Status
Currently, we are in the first year of our first biennium (June 2024 to June 2026) . So far the focus has been identifying and allocating restoration funding for private landowners within our project boundary. We have advertised and held bid tours and contracted over 3,400 acres of upland health treatments (including tree thinning, piling, and burning).
We will also continue to expand our stakeholder engagement through workshops and field tours throughout the biennium. We hope to begin our long term monitoring program during the Summer of 2025. Stay tuned for updates and progress reports.