photo of our kickoff meeting by Danna Stroud
Tuesday July 26, 6:00 pm at Turtle Rock Park.
At our kickoff meeting last month which was attended by some 60 people there was a strong consensus to move forward and form some sort of an organization to promote fire-safe communities, healthy forests and watersheds and a strong local economy. The agencies that manage 95% of Alpine County were strongly supportive. The objective for this meeting is to agree on what type of organization we want to be. and to start moving that process forward.
Katherine Evatt, President of the Foothill Conservancy will be presenting her experience of what makes a successful collaborative group and non-profit organization. She has some 35 years working in the non-profit world and is an active member of the Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group. She will be discussing the merits of a formal vs informal organization and governance issues. In addition, Danna Stroud, our Area Representative for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) will be discussing how the SNC works with and supports similar organizations. The draft agenda can be found here.
Thanks to the Community Development Department there will be a map available for the first time that shows the ownership status for the entire county with topography. It will show which federal agency manages what, the wilderness areas, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and private and state lands. At subsequent meetings this map will be updated with Inventoried Roadless Areas, planned fuels reduction and watershed improvement projects etc.
This meeting will be an important opportunity to meet with the agencies that manage 95% of our county, have a voice in how these lands are managed, and influence which projects should have priority. Working together across agency boundaries we will have a much better chance of securing the funds necessary to improve forest health, and through that have fire-safe communities, healthy watersheds and a strong sustainable local economy. We will also have updates on several projects already in progress or in the planning stage.
To contact us you can either leave a comment on this blog, or for a private comment visit our contact us page.
The Alpine Biomass Committee is supported by a grant from the National Forest Foundation with funds coming from Region 5 of the U.S. Forest Service. This organization is an equal opportunity provider.
Alpine Biomass Collaborative 