Forest Health Program
The goal of the Forest Ecosystem Restoration Program is to preserve, enhance, and restore the health of mixed evergreen, hardwood, and conifer forests and promote late seral conditions. We design and implement landscape level forest restoration projects, including tree and understory planting, forest thinning, shaded ridgetop fuel breaks, conifer release, stand conversion, and prescribed fire. The program collaborates with the Fuels Reduction Program to integrate forest health projects with hazardous fuels reduction projects.
We currently have large scale forest restoration projects funded by CalFire’s Forest Health program and the US Department of Agriculture’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan that will treat over 1200 acres of forests in the Mattole and adjacent Salmon Creek watershed. As we continue to increase our forest and fire work we are constantly reminded to “think like a fireshed” and grow our partnerships with adjacent communities.
In addition, we monitor and map the spread of sudden oak death (SOD) and its impacts to evergreen oak trees and other affected species through stream bait sampling and on the ground assessments. Our SOD work also includes projects that protect stands of native tree species from the spread of SOD and landowner education about SOD.