The National Forest Foundation is working in partnership with the USDA Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service and conservation leaders in Pacific coast states to help community-based organizations remove barriers to watershed-scale restoration projects .

The Community Capacity and Land Stewardship (CCLS) program provides operations grants of up to $24,000 to provide capacity building support for local efforts that work toward improving their effectiveness implementing watershed restoration projects with long-term economic benefits.

The grant program provides support for organizations to develop restoration plans, come to collaborative consensus around watershed priorities, conduct restoration workshops and trainings, and complete other activities that can help organizations achieve restoration and economic development objectives.

By focusing on organizational capacity needs as well as institutional and organizational barriers, the program helps strengthen organizations’ on-the-ground restoration results. Increasing collaboration opportunities allow groups to work through conflict in order to address both rural economic development and local natural resource issues.

At present, CCLS funding is only available to support work benefiting National Forests and Grasslands in California, Oregon, Washington, and in Southeast Alaska. The NFF anticipates offering the program more broadly if additional funding becomes available.

Recent funding was provided for the California initiatives listed below:

  • Nevada County Biomass Task Force, Western Nevada County Biomass Feasibility Assessment, Tahoe National Forest
  • Plumas Audubon Society, Genesee Valley Wildfire Restoration Plan, Plumas National Forest
    Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, Sierra Cascades Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Enhancement, Lassen, El Dorado, Stanislaus and Sierra National Forests
  • South Yuba River Citizens League, Building a Remediation Toolbox for Lands Impacted by Illegal Marijuana Grows, Tahoe and Plumas National Forests
  • Big Bear Valley Education Corporation, Big Bear Valley Wildland Park and Pebble Plain Preserve Collaborative Pilot Project Planning , San Bernardino National Forest
  • Scott River Collaborative, Scott River Collaborative Landscape Scale Restoration Program, Klamath National Forest
  • USR Regional Watershed Management Group, Capacity Building for Collaborative Stewardship with Integrated Regional Watershed Management, Shasta-Trinity and Modoc National Forests
  • South Coast Habitat Restoration, Watershed Restoration for Steelhead Trout, Los Padres National Forest
  • Salmon River Restoration Council, Salmon River Collaborative In-stream Restoration Planning, Klamath and Six Rivers National Forest

Some highlights from last year include:

  • The South Gifford Pinchot Collaborative working in southwest Washington to come to common ground on ecological, economic and community values and metrics in a controversial landscape; and
  • Mid Klamath Watershed Council bringing together diverse stakeholders in the western Klamath Mountains to collaboratively identify, plan and prioritize landscape level upslope restortion projects.

Proposals are currently in review for CCLS in Southeast Alaska and proposals for Oregon and Washington are due July 10th. You can learn more about the CCLS program here.

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