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Friday, 2:00pm

Long term ecological and economic stability and resilience for rural communities requires that economic development activities be closely integrated and attuned to the ecological needs of the land.  Many successful partnerships and collaboratives ascribe their progress to dedicated efforts to understand economic context as they develop conservation strategies – knowing that conservation strategies must be practical and widely supported in order to have lasting effect.  This session will present the data that has been collected by a number of ecological restoration initiatives to specifically document what the economic impacts of their efforts have been.  In addition to presenting the results of their particular experience, presenters will also discuss how they approached the need for good jobs and strong rural economies through the lens of restoration needs and opportunities.  This session promises to be an important jumping off point for discussing what the real economic value and opportunity of ecological restoration can be.
 

Speakers

• Marnie Criley, Restoration Coordinator, Wildlands CPR
  Economic benefits and job creation through road restoration

• Betty Riley, Executive Director, South Central Oregon Economic Development District
  Economic analysis and feasibility of the Lakeview Biomass Initiative

Moderator

Steve Greenwood, Community Programs Director, the National Policy Consensus Center

Recommended Readings

In 2001, the Forest Service's Roads Policy went into effect. That policy called for removing up to 186,000 miles of roads over the next 20-40 years. In 2002, Wildlands CPR hired the Center for Environmental Economic Development out of Arcata, California to determine what such a program might look like in terms of economic costs and benefits. What they found was that with some additional appropriations dedicated to road removal, the US Forest Service could put a lot of people to work removing roads over the next twenty years and beyond. Not only would this provide high-skill, high-wage jobs to rural communities, but it would save significant amounts of taxpayer money that’s now used to clean up sedimentation and other damage from roads. Equally important, it would go a long way towards restoring damaged ecosystems, too. View the summary report (Investing in Communities, Investing n the Land) and full report.

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Marnie Criley

Marnie began working with Wildlands CPR in February 2000. Marnie has an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana and a BA in English from the University of Michigan. Marnie has spent the last 12 years working in forest and watershed restoration in the intermountain region. In addition to small-scale, environmentally-sound logging, she has been involved in numerous aquatic restoration projects including some road removal work. Marnie is a published writer and also spent a year working for Hells Canyon Preservation Council in eastern Oregon. Currently she is a member of the National Forest Restoration Collaborative and the Restore Montana network. She also serves on the steering committee of the Montana Forest Restoration Committee and the board of Montana Trout.

Betty Riley

Betty Riley, South Central Oregon Economic Development District Executive Director, has over sixteen years experience managing the preparation and implementation of planning and development programs and projects, including developing partnerships with multiple agencies and organizations to deliver economic development, community development and business development services. Experience has included working with local jurisdictions and economic development commissions to develop sound goals, policies, strategies and implementation techniques for economic development; administering federal, state, and foundation grants and local contracts; and administering regional small business revolving loan fund programs, including a seven county SBA Micro enterprise Loan Program and five jurisdictional CDBG funded Business Loan fund programs; and assisting local jurisdictions in applications for funding for economic development programs.  Prior to moving to Klamath Falls in June 2006, Ms. Riley was Project Coordinator for the Rural California Action Network (Rural CAN) where she worked with the California Rural Legislative Caucus on identifying priority needs of rural California.

Steve Greenwood

Steve Greenwood serves as the Community Programs Director for the National Policy Consensus Center.  He has a 30-year history working in environmental and public policy in Oregon and was previously the Western Regional Administrator for Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.  He is also the former Board President of the Oregon Environmental Council.