Lomakatsi Restoration Project | Allayana Darrow, Edge Prize 2023

This video was created as a part of a submission to “The Edge Prize” www.edgeprize.org 2023 cohort.

View and contribute to this project on Hylo: https://www.hylo.com/groups/edge-priz...

About the video & creator:

Taktokeewa Habitat Restoration Project

Lomakatsi Restoration Project

Southern Oregon and northern California are in a state of crisis, facing increasing frequency and severity of wildfire and smoke. Thousands of acres of public and private forest lands require urgent ecologically based treatment to reduce fuel loads, improve watershed health, and bolster resilience so they can continue to provide vital ecosystem services for the community. Wildfire and smoke threaten the health and economies of our rural communities, many of which are already facing intense economic challenges following the loss of jobs from the once-thriving forest products industry. Youth in rural forest-based and tribal communities struggle to find long-term employment and career opportunities.

For over 28 years, Lomakatsi has employed an innovative and highly successful model for engaging a diversity of youth in ecological restoration to build fire-adapted forests and communities. This model creates meaningful, living-wage work experiences that provide the foundation for the next generation of workers in the forest product and ecological restoration industries.

Lomakatsi’s Youth Ecological Stewardship Training and Employment Program utilizes landscape-scale ecological restoration projects integrated into Master Stewardship Agreements on the Rogue River-Siskiyou Fremont-Winema and Modoc National Forests to provide training and career development to diverse groups of youth ages 16 to 26. Programs range from four to 18 weeks in length. These programs provide access to a wide range of career professionals in the natural resources field and develop the youths’ skills in hands-on ecological forestry, while providing full-time employment for the duration of the program.

Over the past 15 years, Lomakatsi has led hundreds of youth and young adults in the restoration of thousands of acres of public and private forests lands. We have created precedent-setting collaborative agreements that employ these youth to work side-by-side with forestry experts and seasoned professional forestry workers to create healthy, fire-resistant environments across the Oregon landscape. This work includes reducing hazardous forest fuels, conducting thinning of forest tree species in accordance with best practices for management of forest health, native forest understory planting, and training for employment in the emerging restoration forestry industry that Lomakatsi has been leading and advancing for the past 28 years.

The Taktokeewa Habitat Restoration Project is a collaborative forest restoration initiative between Lomakatsi Restoration Project, the USDA Forest Service Modoc National Forest, and the Kosealekte Band of the Ajumawi-Atsuge Nation (federally recognized as the Pit River Tribe). The purpose of the Taktokeewa Project is to improve forest health, enhance wildlife habitat, maintain cultural values, build local workforce capacity, and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire to the 3,106-acre project area and adjacent communities.

The Taktokeewa Project supports employment opportunities for tribal members and local contractors and helps meet partners’ mutual goals of increasing local capacity for forest restoration and hazardous fuels reduction in the face of climate change and increasing threat of severe wildfire. At the request of tribal partners, Lomakatsi is layering in our workforce training model, creating opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and job mentoring, while incubating tribally owned forestry businesses. Byproducts of ecological restoration will be sold to local mills, supporting industry partners and creating revenue to reinvest into the project.

–

The Edge Prize is a bioregional community, accelerator, and prize challenge focused on Salmon Nation, a bioregion defined by the historic range of wild Pacific salmon, from the Salinas River in California, north to the Yukon River in Alaska.

The goal of the Edge Prize is to:

* Convene a group of extraordinary entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators throughout Salmon Nation working on regenerative projects that benefit the lands, waters, and people of the bioregion — “The Edgewalkers.”

* Invite them into a supportive community of reciprocity, mentorship, workshops, and collaboration.

* Amplify their stories, in order to bring resources, collaboration, partnerships, and inspire others to start their own regenerative initiatives — in Salmon Nation and beyond.

We are building a public-facing library of “what’s working” in Salmon Nation to help scale and accelerate regenerative practices worldwide.