Vibrant Communities
All communities have the energy and creativity to
develop innovative, lasting solutions to local economic, environmental, and
social challenges. Helping people get beyond conflict and work together to overcome their challenges is a core component of our work.
We believe connections between rural and urban communities, and collaboration between diverse interests and individuals, are essential to achieving long-term economic and environmental health.
Through partnerships with community leaders, businesses, local citizens, and diverse interest groups, we help develop collaborative, locally adapted approaches to conservation and economic development.
Features of a vibrant community:
- Fosters and celebrates healthy people and biodiversity, and the linkages between them
- Continually invests in capacities, institutions, and partnerships that protect, restore, and enhance natural, social, and economic capital
- Actively monitors and disseminates status and trends, and shares knowledge and know-how
- Promotes inclusive, collaborative, stakeholder-driven planning and adaptive action in response to changing conditions and knowledge
- Prefers local products and services that result in triple-bottom-line profits
- Has growing options and opportunities because its citizens choose to increasingly internalize the local, regional, global, and intergenerational impacts of their decisions and actions
Stories of Vibrant Communities
- Rebuilding Center
- To reunite and meet the needs of the neighborhood, Shane Endicott started the non-profit Our United Villages, and the Rebuilding Center was its first success.
- Sequim Lavender Festival
- Sequim, Washington residents joined together to reinvent and revitalize the area’s agricultural heritage and celebrate with an annual festival.
- Interfaith Network for Earth Concerns
- The Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon created the Interfaith Network for Earth Concerns to better organize the faith community around environmental concerns.
- FREE GEEK
- Oso Martin pursued a good idea and created a successful non-profit that refurbishes unwanted computers for free and recycles what isn't given away or sold.
- Potawot Health Village
- To meet health care needs in a more comprehensive fashion, United Indian Health Services integrated individual, community, and environmental health.
- Celilo Group
- Nik Blosser and Tom Koehler launched their ecomarketing business as a way to create positive environmental change. The popular Chinook Book is one of their products.
- Gibbs' Organic Produce
- Grant Gibbs has been farming organically since 1975 and keeps it simple by selling his produce, grass-fed chickens, hogs and beef only to local markets.
- Wallowa Resources
- Working with key agencies and private citizens, Wallowa Resources is making a difference in the long-term economic and ecological health of Wallowa County, Oregon.
- The Ranchers Stewardship Alliance
- Emma's Eco-Clean
- A group of low income women in Northern California banded together to create a successful co-op cleaning business using environmentally friendly cleansers.
- Cart'M Recycling
- Frustrated by the lack of recycling resources in Manzanita, Oregon, Lane deMoll and Kathleen Ryan started a citizen-run dump, recycling center and community center.
- A-1 Builders, Inc.
- Rick Dubrow combines his environmentalist values with good business sense to build and remodel energy efficient homes in Bellingham, Washington.
- Full Circle Farm
- Andrew Stout and Wendy Munroe own and run a community supported agriculture farm, with the help of interns, to provide local produce to the Seattle, WA area.
- Othello Sandhill Crane Festival
- Othello, WA residents celebrate the migrating Sandhill crane with an annual festival and field trips to Columbia National Wildlife Refuge.
- Made in the Methow Co-op Store and Community Kitchen
- Twisp, Washington residents opened a co-op and community kitchen to produce and sell local Methow Valley foods and goods as a way to boost their local economy.
- Left Foot Organics
- A non-profit founded by Ann Vandeman provides opportunity for developmentally disabled adults and connects them to their community through organic farming.
- Willows Inn, Nettles Farm, Lummi Reefnetters
- From pasta hand-made with organic Nettles Farm eggs to reefnetted salmon, Riley Starks and Judy Olsen bring quality local food to diners at Willows Inn.
News
- Klamath Tribes Build Partnership to Develop Biomass Facility
- The Klamath Tribes announce plans to develop a biomass cogeneration facility in the upper Klamath Basin to advance renewable energy, forest restoration, and local community development.
- SNW Board Chair wins 2008 Kerr Award from High Desert Museum
- Jane O’Keeffe honored for sustainable economic and natural resource management.
- Welcome New Board Members
- Sustainable Northwest is pleased to welcome three new members to our Board of Directors: Camilla Seth, Jeff Allen, and Marcie McLaughlin.
- Oregon Business Plan and Rural Idaho Entrepreneur Recognized for Leadership in Sustainability and Conservation
- 2008 Cecil D. Andrus Leadership Awards Presented at SNW Gala on March 14th in Portland
- Klamath Basin Agreement establishes new paradigm for Western watershed management
- The proposed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement represents a positive step forward for the management of the West's rivers, rangelands and forests.
- Lakeview dedicates small diameter mill and biomass energy project
- The Collins Companies and Marubeni Sustainable Energy host the ribbon cutting for a new small diameter sawmill and highlight the future Lakeview Biomass Energy Plant in Oregon
- Upstream 21 Acquires Two Wood Products Enterprises
- HFHC partners Jefferson State Forest Products and Community Smallwood Solutions acquired by Upstream 21
- SNW Welcomes Two New Board Members
- Sustainable Northwest is excited to welcome Kathy Long Holland of LongSherpa Design and Tim Taylor of the Environmental Home Center to its Board of Directors.
- Our First Video: The People and Place of Lake County, Oregon
- Through interviews with community members and sweeping images of the quiet Lake County landscape, this video provides a beautiful history of the early days of the community-based sustainability movement in the Northwest. Featuring Paul Harlan, Collins Companies, Jim Walls, Lake County Resources Initiative, Jane O'Keeffe, SNW Board Member and Martin Goebel, SNW President on the story of collaboration on the Lakeview Sustained Yield Unit.
- HFHC Receives Woody Biomass Utilization Grant from USFS
- The Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities Partnership (HFHC) was the recent recipient of a $249,000 Woody Biomass Utilization Grant from the US Forest Service. Through this grant, HFHC will provide strategic financial and technical assistance to four separate projects treating at-risk forests and processing the small diameter material into value added products.
- Public Forum on Working Conditions for Forest Workers Held with Federal Officials
- Federal officials gathered at a public forum in Eugene, Oregon on January 31, 2007 to discuss new efforts to protect the health and safety of contract workers on national forest lands, and hear comments from forest workers and contractors about their experiences with forest working conditions. Among the eighty people in attendance were Mark Rey, USDA Undersecretary for Natural Resources and the Environment, and Alex Passantino, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.
- Chewaucan Challenge: Return of the Desert Red Band Trout
- Due to a recent restoration and dam removal effort, the Chewaucan River in Lake County, Oregon is seeing the return of the Red Band Trout. Scheduled for July 22-25, 2007 in Lakeview, the first-annual Chewaucan Challenge is an elite catch-and-release fly fishing tournament to inaugurate the return of this once thriving recreational fishing industry.
