Uplands Restoration
Around 1% of the historical oak prairie and oak savanna habitat is left in the Willamette valley. Of that remaining habitat, around 98% exists on private lands. We work collaboratively with local private and public partners to restore and enhance these habitats, and support the restoration of culturally relevant activities and methods on this unique and valuable landscape.
Information about the Regional Conservation Partnership Program
The South Willamette Valley (SWV) recently received a big capacity lift for the reintroduction of ecological and cultural burning in oak habitats through the Natural Resource Conservation Service's (NRCS) Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). Funding comes through the Inflation Reduction Act. Oregon Agricultural Trust will be the administrative lead for the 5-year long (2023-2028) funding agreement totaling $9.232 million, with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Long Tom Watershed Council, and Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council as partnering organizations, and Ecostudies Institute's Willamette Valley Fire Collaboration as primary contracting partner.
The RCPP will bring additional capacity to prepare for and reintroduce ecological burning on Tribal, land trust, and single private landowner lands in the Coast Fork WIllamette and Long Tom Watersheds that suffer from fire and human exclusion, impacts from colonization, woody encroachment, and decline of native species. About one third of the funding is allocated for burning and associated prep and follow-up restoration activities on up to 16 sites totaling approximately 1,200 acres. Restoration practices are all-encompassing including burn plan and management plan writing, forest stand thinning and brush treatments, fire break prep and prescribed burn implementation, and post-burn seeding and non-native species control.
The remaining two thirds of the funding is allocated for permanent protection of land through easements which will be held by Oregon Agricultural Trust. Easements will include clauses allowing for cultural use and access by Tribal members. Pending completion of partnership agreements, there will be an annual application period open to any landowner. Sites will be prioritized according to actual or likely interest expressed by Tribal members in accessing the site; likelihood for successful burn implementation; presence of high abundance and/or diversity of culturally significant species such as camas, hazel, tarweed, and acorn-producing oaks; geographic location within a conservation opportunity area; availability of matching funds; size and/or connectivity to adjacent oak habitats; and other metrics that will be agreed upon by project partners. This RCPP was sought as a complement to broader regional efforts to realize greater capacity for ecological and cultural burning, centering Indigenous leadership as we collectively work to restore not only ecological communities but also the human relationships that have always been central to them. Throughout the RCPP roll-out, partners will work closely with our Tribal and Indigenous partners to ensure our work aligns with cultural values, supports an emerging cultural monitoring framework associated with good fire, and uplifts ongoing human-land relationships in the region.
Excerpts from RCPP proposal below for additional information
Project Name: Restoring, Protecting, and Supporting Tribal Connection to Native Oak Habitat
Lead Partner Org - Oregon Agricultural Trust
Partnering Orgs - Long Tom Watershed Council, Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Ecostudies Institute Willamette Valley Fire Collaboration
Executive Summary
Oregon’s biodiverse oak savannas and woodlands hold immense ecocultural value. This project’s three interrelated goals are to 1) restore native oak habitat by reintroducing traditional disturbance regimes, 2) permanently protect private agricultural lands with associated oak habitats from development and fragmentation and 3) facilitate access to restored and protected properties for Native people for harvest, cultural purposes and stewardship. Proposal activities will occur in Oregon’s Lane and Linn Counties in the Upper Willamette Valley.
Restoration objectives (Goal 1) include increasing native plant species establishment and native insect and animal species prevalence and resiliency on 1281 acres of oak habitat through the practices of prescribed burning, including pre-burn activities of brush management and fuel breaks, and post-burn treatments of herbaceous weed treatments and conservation cover.
We will also use prescribed grazing, an innovative practice for our region. And we will monitor projects using a framework that will provide an Indigenous perspective for project success, climate resilience and adaptive management.
The land protection objective (Goal 2) is to protect agricultural land with associated oak habitat - specifically, 6 properties totaling ~1200 acres. This will safeguard past investments in oak habitat restoration and make future restoration possible on some of the most vital lands for oak restoration since privately owned lands contain 90% of the remaining oak habitat in the Willamette Valley.
The objective for facilitating access to Native people (Goal 3) is to grant the land’s stewards since time immemorial perpetual access for traditional harvest and cultural purposes. We will achieve this by encouraging landowners to sign cultural access agreements as stand-alone or as terms of an agricultural conservation easement. We will share information about these properties with federally recognized Oregon Tribes and Indigenous organizations.