Mission & Vision
Our Mission
The Northern Blues Restoration Partnership is a coalition of diverse local and regional partners who have come together to work on a common challenge to coordinate and implement forest and fire resiliency restoration projects on public, private and Tribal forestland across the Washington-Oregon Northern Blue Mountains Region using education, outreach, and increased shared capacity through partnerships. We believe that incorporating a wide diversity of interested voices into respectful, constructive conversations can increase the ecological health of the forest, the economic opportunity in our region, and the social harmony in our community.
Our Vision
We look to work together, across boundaries in the Northern Blues, to facilitate implementation of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy’s goal of restoring and creating healthy, fire-resilient landscapes and communities. We accomplish this by developing a common vision and complementary objectives across public, private, and Tribal forestlands, identifying priority landscapes and projects, identifying gaps and leveraging resources among these partners, using the Partnership as a neutral coordination platform for landowner outreach, and implementing “All Hands, All Lands” forest restoration & fire resiliency projects.
Our Strategies
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Monitoring and Adaptive Management
We recognize the importance of continuous assessment and learning to improve our restoration efforts and impacts.
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Workforce Development
Our investment in developing local workforce capacity supports healthy and vibrant communities.
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Fire Adapted Communities
We support the development of local Community Wildfire Protection Plans and fire-adapted communities, like Firewise USA.
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Landscape Scale & Cross-Boundary Treatments
We prioritize projects that work across public, private, and Tribal lands, addressing issues at a landscape scale including risk-informed wildfire.
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Special Habitats and Resources
We approach restoration holistically with consideration for special habitats and resources important to local communities.
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Public Engagement and Storytelling
We hope to create dialogue with the public through engaging events and human-centered stories.
Our Focus
To meet this mission and vision, the Northern Blues Restoration Partnership has developed the following strategic focus areas:
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At the heart of our success is the collaboration that takes place within our partnership; collaboration is an essential component of what we do.
Formalized collaborative groups, such as the Northern Blues Forest Collaborative and My Blue Mountains Woodland, help streamline operations, coordination, partnering, and funding across public, private, and Tribal lands through regular meetings, check-ins, and relationship building.
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Through strategic prioritization of cross-boundary forest and fire-resiliency restoration projects, the Northern Blues Restoration Partnership leverages work happening on all landownerships to get the most “bang for our buck.”
We know that landscape restoration isn’t a one-time fix - it’s a long-term commitment and a process of constant learning. In restoration work, some of the most valuable lessons come from our field experience and observations, by trying something new, and seeing how it impacts the land and community. Our commitment to monitoring the impacts of our restoration work, gaining measurable data and metrics and using that information to adapt and refine treatments, ensures our processes are positively impacting the landscapes and communities where we work.
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We recognize that restoration work does not happen in a vacuum; communication with partners, landowners, contractors, and the public are a key part of the implementation process.
The Northern Blues Restoration Partnership regularly partners with different agencies, organization, and groups to support and host outreach events like tours, meetings, public forums, and panels. We also host an Annual Field Tour in the fall and an Annual Meeting in late winter, each taking an in-depth look at topics of interest in our Partnership. Be sure to check out the Events page for more information on upcoming events in your area!
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Implementation of cross-boundary forest & fire resiliency restoration projects to enable healthy ecosystem processes is the keystone element of the Northern Blues Restoration Partnership. While restoration doesn’t eliminate wildfires, it does reduce the risk of large, intense wildfire, thereby protecting our forest resources, homes, recreation sites, water and air quality, and other values.
We are working across boundaries with public, private and Tribal landowners, county governments, non-profit organizations, and other interested groups to implement sustainable forestry across our entire region, regardless of ownership - we call this Shared Stewardship. By working and making decisions together through Shared Stewardship, we are able to evaluate forest restoration and fire-resiliency needs, agree on priority areas, and take effective action to make our landscapes and communities more resilient to natural disturbances.
