Click on the titles and names below to learn more about the working groups and their chairs:

Biomass

The Biomass working group promotes diverse utilization of woody biomass as a means of supporting hazardous fuels reduction and restoration of fire adapted ecosystems, while providing social and economic benefits to the communities of the rural West.  Our work focuses on developing incentives for appropriately scaled biomass utilization efforts, enabling the federal agencies to provide a sustainable supply of woody biomass derived from the stewardship of federal forest lands, and promoting traditional and innovative uses of woody biomass that focus on adding value and creating green jobs in rural communities.

Chairs: Mike DeBonis, The Forest Guild; Chad Davis, Sustainable Northwest

Climate Change

The Climate Change working group places particular emphasis on the impacts and opportunities of climate change on low-income and vulnerable rural populations.  It seeks federal forest management that incorporates climate change and fosters resilient communities and landscapes in the wake these transformations.  The group focuses on developing adaptation and mitigation strategies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, encourage carbon sequestration through carbon-offset markets and incentive programs, and promote green jobs related to climate change.

Chairs: Gerry Gray, American Forests; Cullen Brady, Sustainable Northwest; Kathy Lynn, University of Oregon

Private Lands

The Private Lands working group formed in response to the rapid conversion of private forestland nationwide. The group's goals are to support integrated approaches to maintaining working forests across private and public lands.  Specific efforts encourage development and implementation of land owner financial and technical assistance programs, payments for ecosystem services, tax reform, and promotion of innovative ownership models and land aggregation and acquisition strategies. 

Chairs: Maureen Bookwalter, Northwest Connections; Max Nielsen-Pincus, Ecosystem Workforce Program

Ranching

The Ranching and Rangeland Restoration working group seeks to promote and create collaborative approaches to ranchland stewardship that ensure successful public lands grazing and conservation practices.  Its efforts support integrated management across ownerships, establishing public lands grazing and monitoring systems, and reforming tax policies and easements that conserve open space and encourage public investment in ranching.  The group also attempts to enhance the viability of ranching by increasing access to payments for ecosystem services and local markets related to ranching and range stewardship enterprises

Chairs: James Honey, Sustainable Northwest; Johnny Sundstrom, The Siuslaw Institute

Public Lands Stewardship

The Public Lands Stewardship working group strives to improve relevant agencies’ planning processes and budget structures to achieve objectives of landscape scale restoration, hazardous fuels reduction, and wildfire management.  It also seeks to encourage collaboration and establish the roles of ecosystem services, carbon sequestration, and thinning as they relate to the creation of green jobs and effective landscape scale stewardship on public lands.

Chairs: Lynn Jungwirth, Watershed Research & Training Center; Wendy Gerlitz and Maia Enzer, Sustainable Northwest

Rural Conservation-based Economic Development

The Rural Conservation-based Economic Development working group promotes effective stewardship contracting practices that foster high-quality restoration, local jobs, and economic benefit in forest and range communities.  It seeks to create green jobs and businesses in these communities through increased accessibility to rural development programs, economic recovery funds, and the development of alternative markets such as ecosystem services.

Chairs: Cassandra Moseley, Ecosystem Workforce Program; Marnie Criley, Restore Montana

Budget and Appropriations Task Group

View highlights and a detailed summary of the President's FY2011 proposal.

The Budget and Appropriations task group is an ad-hoc group primarily comprised of working group chairs, though others are encouraged to participate.  This group will not have monthly conference calls throughout the whole year, but rather will work intensively around the introduction of the President’s budget and the appropriations cycle.  The task group promotes an integrated approach to forest management that directs investments to rural communities to stimulate local economies and builds capacity for long-term public lands stewardship. It also provides insight and ideas regarding how federal agencies can include measurements relevant to rural forest dependent communities and workers in their performance measures, which they use to monitor agency effectiveness.

The task group functions as a resource for all of the RVCC working groups, providing support with legislative comments and research, media strategy, and sign-on letters. Specifically, the group focuses on increasing investment and new authorities needed to promote restoration, rural conservation-based economic development, farm bill, access to work and supply on public lands, collaborative partnerships, wildfire policy, and related legislative and appropriations proposals.

Each year, the group responds to the Administration's budget proposal by producing a comprehensive Community-based Restoration Funding Package.

Chairs: Maia Enzer, Sustainable Northwest, Wendy Gerlitz, Sustainable Northwest.