On Saturday, July 29, 2017, Congresswoman Chu (D 27th District, California) presented her 8th Annual Congressional Leadership ‘Building Bridges’ Award to the San Gabriel Mountains Community Collaborative (Collaborative). Congresswoman Chu is recognizing the work of the Collaborative to bring a wide range of community stakeholders to engage with the U.S. Forest Service-Angeles National Forest (led by Supervisor Jeffrey Vail) on a range of projects.
“Working in such a large group where opinions on the priorities for projects vary, and where each representative has a passion for these mountains, has been both a wonderful learning experience and a magnificent accomplishment to find common ground,” said Joe Lyons, Councilperson, City of Claremont. “Our goal is to provide plausible, reasonable, protective, and actionable comments to the USFS and respond to their requests for input has been rewarding.”
The Collaborative, which is facilitated by the National Forest Foundation, has members representing 46 community interests (including academic, business, civil rights, community, conservancies, cultural, environmental, environmental justice, ethnic diversity, education, youth, state and local government, Native American, public safety, recreation, special use permit holders, land lease holders, transportation, utilities, and water rights holders). The Collaborative’s purpose is to:
“Represent the general public by integrating diverse perspectives to identify, analyze, prioritize and advocate for values, resources, investments, management objectives and implementation practices that sustainably benefit all communities throughout the region, the Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.”
For more information about the Collaborative, please visit: nationalforests.org/sangabrielmountains
