Articles
Improving Working Lands
Stewardship to manage responsibly and to respond progressively to the factors affecting the sustainability of our land and communities
Our work unites social, economic, and ecological goals to improve working lands. We believe it is our responsibility to take care of the land or, in other words, to be stewards of the land. We see stewardship as an opportunity to fulfill our obligations to future generations, to the land, and to the community. For us, stewardship is synonymous with husbandry, care, and conservation. We also believe in continuing Wallowa County’s rich heritage of making a living from the land through sustainable forestry, ranching and agriculture. Guided by these core values of stewardship and working land conservation, we implement projects to improve forests, streams, and grasslands on public and private lands. We do this by providing landowners and resource mangers with the necessary tools and assistance to complete on-the-ground projects. We are proud of the work we do and the improvements we see as a result of our successful projects.
As of today, we have
- Restored 32 miles of stream habitat
- Maintained and enhanced over 11,000 acres of forest through harvest, thinning, and burning
- Treated 15,000 acres of weeds
- And in 2011, we put $245,000 into the local economy by hiring contractors to implement field work.
Stewardship Work Requires Partners
Stewardship work cannot be done alone. We partner with landowners, resource managers, and community members to improve our working lands. We work with others to assess conditions, evaluate options and to implement on-the-ground projects. This collaborative approach allows us to coordinate our efforts, leverage resources, and work seamlessly across land ownership boundaries. Through these partnerships, we have accomplished much more than we could have while working alone.
