Overview of the Partnership
Working together across public, private and tribal land boundaries, the Northern Blues Restoration Parnership facilitates the implementation of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy’s goal of restoring and creating healthy fire resilient landscapes and communities in the Northern Blue mountains area.
We accomplish this by developing a common vision and complementary objectives across public, private and tribal forestlands; identifying priority landscapes and projects; identifying gaps and leveraging resources among these partners; using the Partnership as a neutral coordination platform for landowner outreach; and implementing “All Hands, All Lands” forest restoration & fire resiliency projects. The Partnership is comprised of federal, state and local agencies and organizations, listed below.
Our Partners
Our Mission
The Northern Blues Restoration Partnership is a coalition of diverse local and regional partners who have come together to work on a common challenge to coordinate and implement forest and fire resiliency restoration projects on public, private and tribal forestland across the Washington-Oregon Northern Blue Mountains Region using education, outreach, and increased shared capacity through partnerships. We believe that incorporating a wide diversity of interested voices into respectful, constructive conversations can increase the ecological health of the forest, the economic opportunity in our region, and the social harmony in our community.
The Challenge
Nearly 100 years of effective fire suppression, coupled with past management practices, have altered the Blue Mountain’s forested ecosystems. Forest densities have increased, forest composition has shifted toward less draught and fire resistant species, and forests have encroached upon historical meadows and grasslands, important for wildlife. This has increased risk of catastrophic fire across our landscape, elevated risk to valued resources (both natural and man-made), and has made wildland fire fighting more hazardous.
The Response
We are collectively committed to implementing treatments within the Northern Blues to restore forested ecosystems to greater levels of fire resiliency, reduce risk of catastrophic fire, and allow naturally occurring fire to play its beneficial roles.
Treatments are targeting cross-boundary opportunities, strategic fuel breaks, and special habitats/resources (such as aspen, wet meadows, old forests, whitebark pine, cultural resources, etc.).
We are utilizing mechanical treatments to alter fuel loads, and where feasible, apply prescribed burning to favor more open forests with fire-resistant tree species, protect old forests/trees, reduce prevalence of true fir, and enhance heterogeneity of forests.
These treatments are expected to have positive impacts on watershed health and to provide important habitat for wildlife and plant species associated with fire-adapted forests.
We are utilizing resulting forest products in manners that offset treatment costs and contribute to our natural resource economy.
We are implementing robust monitoring to determine if our objectives have been met and to inform adaptive management.
We are seeking out and actively leverage partnerships that expand our restoration capacity.
We are communicating effectively among partners and with our collective public.
As partners, we are committed to aligning our efforts (where feasible) to maximize desired impacts.