Northeastern Oregon’s remote Wallowa County with its lowland prairies, rolling foothills, pristine waters, and snowcapped mountains is a landscape that has evoked strong emotions ever since Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Tribe walked the land. Wallowa Resources, a community-based nonprofit organization, is a current expression of local resident’s concern for and connection with this land. It was formed in 1996 following a two-year conversation among local residents born of frustration and a measure of hope.

Diane Snyder was the county’s planning director in the early 90s when the timber economy began its downward slide; it became apparent that the Chinook salmon was going to be listed as an endangered species, limiting forest and resource management options. Says Diane, “The county commission decided to work with the Nez Perce tribe to appoint a diverse group of people to put together a habitat plan for Chinook salmon. Nowhere in the country, that we were aware of, were counties taking that kind of approach. We looked at each stream reach in our community to identify the threats to habitat and the actions that need to be taken over time to improve habitat conditions.”

“It really opened up the dialogue in the community about our level of responsibility for habitat. As private landowners, what is our responsibility? Because we were having that dialogue, I think it put us light years ahead of other communities.”

But the challenges kept coming. Environmental litigation and uncertainty among federal agencies about changing regulations meant that logging and grazing on public land came to a virtual standstill. Says Diane, “In 1994, absolutely nothing came off of public land in our area; we went from 70 million board feet to zero. People blamed the environmental community.” That blame came to head when two local environmentalists were hung in effigy on Main Street in Joseph. “There were three mills operating. All three of them shut down sequentially. Boise Cascade was a large log mill and they shut down, dismantled and went away forever. That eliminated 15% of the highest paying jobs in our county.”

Diane describes the feeling in the community at that time: “Total fear, nobody cares, nobody hears, nobody understands; we’re under attack, we have to fight back. It was really scary.” At the same time, “A group of us were interested in trying to figure out how we could have conversations about what the future looks like.”

That got the attention of Martin Goebel, who had just launched Sustainable Northwest with the hope of promoting environmentally sound economic development by working collaboratively with rural communities. In 1995, Ben Boswell, a Wallowa County Commissioner, invited Martin to assist in facilitating monthly discussions about the county’s future. A broad range of local residents took part: ranchers, foresters, teachers, artists, local business and government leaders. Diane remembers, “Martin helped establish a dialogue and then provided a process for evolving discussion into action.”

Says Diane, “A core group firmly believed that we could find innovative solutions. We knew intrinsically that the health of the forest ecosystem was in decline; most of us had been living on the land for many years. The hardest part was actually getting to the point where we could say past management practices were not the way we should be doing business, that they were not healthy for the landscape.”

It took nearly a year and a half of consensus-based discussions for the group to agree on a goal statement: Promote community, forest and watershed health while creating family-wage jobs and business opportunities, and broaden understanding of the connections between community well-being and ecosystem health. Wallowa Resources was incorporated as a non-profit in 1997 to advance that goal; 80 community residents participated in electing the board of directors.

Diane is a fourth generation resident of Wallowa County, and the mother of five. “I live on the ranch that was my grandfather’s, so my children are the third generation to grow up on this land.” After a stint working for the Oregon House of Representatives, Diane moved back to the county and started working for the county government, soon taking on the position of planning director. When the board of Wallowa Resources decided to hire a full-time executive director, Diane moved from being part of a community process to becoming its focal point. “That same year, while updating the strategic plan for economic development, the residents of the county identified maintaining the natural resource based economy as their number one goal. As a result, the County Commissioners officially recognized Wallowa Resources as a lead agent for maintaining the natural resource based economy in the county.”

In its early years, Wallowa Resources sponsored a series of public forums that brought in speakers to address topics that included value-added wood products, markets for “natural” beef, and the role of fires in forests. Field tours brought together regional environmental group representatives and local foresters and ranchers. A summer camp was launched to bring city and local kids together to learn about each other, horses and the land. Says Diane, “In an effort to preserve the area’s heritage of making a living with the land, we strive to balance Wallowa County’s economic well-being and the use of its resources.”

Diane is quick to share the credit with her 15-member board and six staff members, particularly Nils Christofferson, field programs manager, who brings international experience in community-based forestry. Nils reports more recent achievements: “In the past two years, we distributed $598,000 to 34 different local contractors to restore over 700 acres of forest and riparian habitat, treat 4,770 acres to control noxious weeds, and assess forest and range conditions. Our program balances field based restoration work with support to value-added manufacturing and marketing. Over the past three years, considerable time and effort has been directed to the maintenance of small log manufacturing capacity and the identification and development of new markets for small log products. We have also invested in the development and implementation of collaborative watershed restoration.”

Since most of the land in Wallowa County is public, restoration efforts involve public agencies, particularly the Forest Service. Diane explains, “We found out that the contractors in Wallowa County were not accessing the restoration and service contracts. We began to do the research and learned that was due to the way the contracts were being packaged by the Forest Service in terms of size, timing and the types of work.”

Diane and the Wallowa Resources team began working with local Forest Service contracting agents to change the way contracts were designed, only to find there were other barriers higher up the chain of command. She and other staff members made numerous trips to Washington D.C., giving testimony about contracting and related issues. And that work paid off. “After our conversations, the Forest Service contracting agents came up with a new planning process in the local tri-forest area. They actually amended the process so that district rangers can figure out how to package service contract work in a way that makes sense for our communities.”

Says Diane, “One of the purposes of Wallowa Resources is to reengage people in the decision making process. Local people have been the forestry employees, we really have not been part of the decisions about what and where to harvest. Then there was this onslaught of environmental litigation and decisions were being made in the court system. Again, communities were not part of the decision-making process, but we are the ones at the end of the pendulum swinging high and low.”

Last summer many communities saw their restoration dollars diverted to fire suppression. “Because of our close partnership with the Forest Service, Wallowa Resources was able to continue with that important work, where many other communities couldn’t. The sad thing is the economy of this place is too thin to weather that kind of storm. If we cannot get to the place where we can provide these people in the private sector a consistent program of work, we’ve lost it.”

“The core of our mission is to blend the needs of the land and community. We want to make sure that the voice of the community is heard as decisions are being made and that a healthy future is created for the land surrounding us, as well as for the next generation of those connected closely to it.”

Contact
Wallowa Resources
200 W. North Street
Enterprise, OR 97828
Phone: 541-426-8053
FAX: 541-426-9053
e-mail:info@wallowaresources.org
www.wallowaresources.org