Private forest lands stretching 27 miles from Jacksonville to beyond Wimer, Ore., will receive treatment to reduce fire risk and improve forest health under a $21.25 million federal grant to a local forest restoration nonprofit.

Lomakatsi Restoration of Ashland, Ore., was awarded the funds by the USDA’s Regional Conservation Partnership Program. It will provide treatment in an 83,000-acre area over a five-year period with the Rogue Bear All-Lands Restoration Project.

The award is the largest grant received by Lomakatsi in its 29-year history. The project is expected to run for five years and treat up to 10,000 acres with thinning and prescribed burns.

“It will be for private, not industrial, land owners with from 20 to a couple hundred acres. The smaller woodland owners,” said Marko Bey, Lomakatsi executive director. Besides ecological benefits, the project will also create employment for local forestry services providers and job training opportunities, Bey added.

Through the process, Lomakatsi expects to work with approximately 240 different landowners, and will collaborate with partners to raise additional funding with the goal of ultimately accomplishing ecologically based fuels reduction on 40% of the larger project area.

Lomakatsi will lead the planning and implementation process, working closely with the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service, members of Rogue Forest Partners and other government and nonprofit organizations.

Treatments will emphasize removing younger, smaller diameter trees around homes, roadways and strategic ridgelines to improve wildland fire response and evacuation options. The treatments retain large, old, more fire-resistant trees and hardwoods such as oaks to reduce the risk of severe wildfire

In some treated areas, partners will utilize native seed to help re-establish a healthy understory that supports habitat for the Monarch butterfly and other pollinators.

Work is scheduled to begin in 2025 with preliminary environmental assessments in partnership with NRCS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, followed by targeted outreach to landowners whose properties have been identified as the highest priority for treatment.

Property owners would make an application to be part of the program. They would sign contracts with Lomakatsi. Technicians will write treatment prescriptions working with land owners, said Tom Greco, Lokasi communication director.

“We may hold some public forums to let the property owners know what is involved,” said Shane Jimerfield, program director with Lomakatsi.

One goal of the project is getting the land ready so that owners can carry on maintenance. Many of the tracts may be overgrown due to a lack of natural fire over the last century.

“A lot of the work is what we call initial, heavy treatment. This the heavy lifting, the initial thing to get land owners set up for the project, helping them get up on this very expensive work,” said Bey.

Work will be done by subcontractors, likely from the Medford, Grants Pass or Klamath Falls areas, said Bey. “Any day can have 200 people out on the ground.”

The effort will continue an ongoing history of collaborations between nonprofits, government agencies and other groups in the region to work on fire treatment and forest restoration.

Rogue Forest Partners, which includes Lomakatsi, is an alliance of four nonprofits and six public agencies involved in the efforts. Other collaborators include the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, local Native American tribes, the U.S Forest Service and Oregon Department of Forestry.

The agencies and non-profits collaborated on coming up with the $5.6 million in matching money for the grant, said Bey The funding comes from the USDA’s NRCS and is part of the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda.

“There’s a lot of mutual support,” said Bey. Availability of the matching funds helped elevate the application. The Rogue Bear Project is one of 92 projects across the nation, and one of five in Oregon, that was selected through a competitive national application process.

The larger area is divided into three zones. Zone 1 will be the eastern portions of the area south of Interstate 5, while Zone 2 will be western areas south of the freeway. Zone three will be lands north of I-5.

City governments in Jacksonville, Gold Hill and Rogue River will be involved. In addition, the effort will include work around unincorporated areas such as Wimer and Foots Creek.

The federal agency is having third parties such as Lomakatsi manage almost all components of the programs, said Bey. It’s a first time for the approach with NRCS, but has been done with other federal agencies previously.

The grant will mean a larger workforce for Lomakatsi.

“We have been stepping through a scaling process for the last several years. We will have to scale for more capacity,” said Bey. Lomakatsi now has 97 FTE employees. About 50 are on restoration work crews, while there are about 10 forest ecology technicians and and 12 people working in finances and general administration. There are also foresters, fire managers and cultural resource specialists.

Grant administration staff has been boosted over the last year with increased funding. The organization’s budget this year will be about $15 million.

The Rogue Bear Project will create a contiguous footprint with the 52,000-acre Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project and the 27,000-acre West Bear All-Lands Restoration Project to the southeast, which share similar goals.