An official website of
In this summary:
Throughout this summary, you’ll find relevant follow-up resources in gold boxes.
From September 6-8th, 2023, approximately 100 collaborative leaders and partners gathered in Salida, Colorado for the 2023 annual Colorado Forest Collaboratives Summit. The creation of the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network (CFCN) was inspired by successes at past Forest Collaboratives Summits, and Summit now represents the flagship annual event for the CFCN. To learn more about the CFCN, visit our webpage and/or join our mailing list.
This summary is intended to provide a very broad overview of speakers’ talks and resulting discussions, and to compile related resources.
Folks who attended Summit may contact CFCN Coordinator Katie McGrath Novak for a list of registrants & their contact info.
Session objectives:
We kicked off this year’s Summit with a warm welcome from three Salida-area locals. One of our goals this year was to establish a place-based connection to our Summit location and highlight local successes there. In our first session, we heard from Chaffee County Commissioner Greg Felt, Department of Natural Resources Wildfire Mitigation Program Administrator Alison Lerch, and Arkansas River Watershed Collaborative Executive Director Jonathan Paklaian. Each shared with us a brief overview of their own organization and a few exciting things they’re working on. Below are a couple of key points, plus follow-up resources.
Topic: Envision Chaffee County
Greg Felt, Chaffee County Commissioner
Commissioner Felt welcomed us to Chaffee County and shared a brief history and overview of one of the area’s well-known collaboratives, Envision Chaffee County.
Follow-ups and resources on Envision Chaffee County:
Topic: Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP)
Alison Lerch, Wildfire Mitigation Program Administrator, CO Department of Natural Resources
Alison shared COSWAP updates, including a story of local success using Department of Corrections crews from the COSWAP grant to complete wildfire mitigation work in Lake County.
Follow-ups and resources related to COSWAP:
Topic: ARWC Overview & Successes
Jonathan Paklaian, Executive Director, Arkansas River Watershed Collaborative (ARWC)
Jonathan introduced us to ARWC, discussed the importance of nuanced science communication around wildfire and forestry efforts, and shared a few of the local successes that he is most looking forward to.
Follow-ups to ARWC:
Topic: Welcome to the 2023 Colorado Forest Collaboratives Summit!
Katie McGrath Novak, Coordinator, Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network
Katie wrapped up our welcome session with lots of huge thank you’s to all who made Summit possible (see bottom of this summary).
Follow-ups and resources about the Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network:
Session objectives:
One of the most common things we hear at the CFCN is that people need help with funding, and particularly with scaling up funding to achieve larger and larger goals. We know that this can look vastly different based on a number of community dynamics, so we wanted to highlight the process of scaling up funding in a couple of different ways.
Because these talked focused on processes, rather than specific funding mechanisms, we recommend the following resources for folks interested in learning about state funding initiatives:
We were pleased to have Tara Umphries (US Forest Service Program Manager for Shared Stewardship, Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative, and Colorado Front Range Landscape Wildfire Crisis Strategy) facilitate this session for us.
Topic: The Southwest Wildfire Impact Fund (SWIF)
Ellen S. Roberts, Consultant & former Colorado legislator
Aaron Kimple, SWERI Program Director for Cross-Boundary Fire and Fuel Treatment Assessment and Application
Ellen and Aaron shared their experiences creating the Southwest Wildfire Impact Fund (SWIF) in their community. Their story started with the realization that wildfire mitigation money tends to go to densely populated areas, leaving more rural areas with fewer resources. Looking for ways to prove that their local community has some ‘skin in the game’ and is ready to engage and support wildfire mitigation, they created an initial vision, then allowed that vision to evolve over time according to local needs and preferences.
Follow-ups and resources related to the SWIF:
Topic: Boulder County Wildfire Mitigation Tax Measure
Paul Orbuch, Coordinator, Boulder County Fireshed
Meg Halford, Wildfire Team Forest & Grasslands Project Coordinator, Boulder County
Scott Golden, Resource Specialist for Forestry and fire, Boulder County Parks & Open Space
Paul, Meg, and Scott shared their experiences collaborating on a recent Boulder County wildfire mitigation tax measure. The tax measure, passed in November 2022 with a 72% approval rate, is used for forest and grassland wildfire risk mitigation projects, community programs to help residents prepare for wildfires, fire mitigation staffing, and more. Paul shared statistics comparing median incomes in counties that have managed to pass tax initiatives, noting that though it feels like a major hurdle, income does not have to be the determining factor in getting tax initiatives passed.
Follow-ups and resources about the Boulder County Wildfire Mitigation Tax:
Following presentations from our speakers, we led into a break, where we asked folks to discuss at their tables: “What is one success you’ve had related to funding recently, and/or what is a challenge you’ve faced related to funding lately?” We asked participants to track their responses on sticky notes. Here are a few highlights that we heard:
Successes included:
Challenges included:
Are you involved in one of the success stories above? Are you in the midst of one of these challenges and want to brainstorm solutions? Do you have advice or experiences to share related to these topics? We’d love to have you on a Branching Out session! You can volunteer to share in our Suggestion Box.
Session objectives:
Dan Gibbs, Director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources
Matt McCombs, Director and State Forester, Colorado State Forest Service
Jim Pitts, Deputy Supervisor, Pike-San Isabel National Forests and Cimarron & Comanche National Grasslands (filling in for Diana Trujillo, Forest Supervisor)
Next up, we had leadership from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Colorado State Forest Service, and US Forest Service share updates, followed by a Q&A where we asked Summit attendees to ask questions and share on-the-ground insights with leadership. Julie Shapiro, Senior Policy Director at Keystone Policy Center, did an excellent job moderating this session, keeping us on track and pulling key insights from a dense Q&A session.
Follow-ups & resources related to the leadership panel:
Session objectives:
Topic: Clear Creek Watershed Pre-Wildfire Planning Study
Kerry Major, Chair, Clear Creek Watershed & Forest Health Partnership
Kerry shared a story of navigating a sea of tools and frameworks that exist for pre-wildfire planning. She shared that focusing on problem definition and evaluating tools based on how well they would address specific constraints helped identify components of tools that would best serve the Clear Creek Watershed & Forest Health Partnership. Ultimately, a combination of approaches from many different tools (listed below) was used to create the pre-wildfire plan.
Follow-ups and resources related to Clear Creek Watershed Pre-Wildfire Planning Study:
Topic: Chaffee County Spatial Planning Tool
Brett Wolk, Assistant Director, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute
Brett shared his perspectives from working on the Chaffee County Community Wildfire Protection Planning effort. In this collaborative effort, a team from the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute adapted their Risk Assessment and Decision Support framework to create a map commonly referred to as Chaffee’s “bang for the buck map”.
Follow-ups and resources related to Chaffee County spatial planning tool:
Topic: Tools for Landscape-Scale Monitoring on the Rio Chama CFLRP
Dana Guinn, Southwest Partnership Manager, Forest Stewardship Guild
Filling in for Esme Cadiente, (Southwest Region Director, Forest Stewards Guild) who was unable to join Summit due to unforeseen circumstances, Dana shared the process of navigating tools available for landscape-scale monitoring on the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project (CFLRP). She outlined the structured process through slides, linked below.
Follow-ups and resources related to landscape-scale monitoring on the Rio Chama CFLRP:
On Friday, we took a field trip to visit two cross-boundary forest management projects on the ground. The Poncha Pass Forest Restoration Project, led by the Colorado State Forest Service, took place across private and Bureau of Land Management jurisdictions. The project was designed to slow the spread of insects and mitigate wildfire risk around critical infrastructure including a major highway, a power line, homes, and businesses. You can learn more about the Poncha Pass project in the article, “Restoring Poncha Pass: Protecting Communities from Wildfire.”
We then visited the Riverside Project north of Buena Vista. Led by Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and in partnership with the National Forest Foundation, this project also took place across both private and Bureau of Land Management lands. It was a multi-purpose project with a particularly strong emphasis on wildlife habitat enhancement. We visited two stops – at one, we chatted with a private landowner about his motivations for being a part of the project, and heard about the behind-the-scenes components of the project like funding and grant management. Then, we headed to a site where a thinning treatment had been completed fairly recently and heard about the technical components of the project.
At the end of this year’s Summit, we handed out surveys that we asked folks to fill out in exchange for a happy hour drink ticket. We received tons of thoughtful feedback that we can’t wait to incorporate into next year’s Summit – with feedback, we can make each year better and better! Below are some of the most common things we heard in our surveys.
Survey prompt: Please share two things that were good about this year’s Summit.
Common responses:
Survey prompt: Please share two things that could have been better.
Survey prompt: Are there any follow-up conversations, resources, or connections you would like to see following the 2023 Summit?
Many of the requests we received have already been included throughout this report (for example, PowerPoint slides are linked in the main summary under the speaker that shared them). Here are a few of the additional requests we received:
The 2023 Colorado Forest Collaboratives Summit was made possible thanks to contributions and hard work from so many great collaborators across Colorado. We would especially like to thank our Summit planning team, field trip planning team, speakers, and sponsors.
Summit Planning Team
Field Trip Planning Team
Speakers
