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Summary by Katie McGrath Novak, Colorado Forest Health Council Member serving as “an individual employed by or associated with a forest collaborative organization”
This document summarizes points from the October 25th, 2023 Colorado Forest Health Council quarterly meeting that I believe are most relevant to Colorado’s place-based forest collaboratives. It is an interpretation of discussions from the meeting, but is not an official Forest Health Council document.
To keep this summary short and relevant to forest collaboratives, this summary does not cover the following agenda items, which take place in the meeting recording from 00:00:00 – 00:26:28.
Additionally, the recording does not cover the CFHC’s discussion detailing the Legislative Committee Charter, found in the meeting recording from 1:14:10 – 1:16:16.
Brett Wolk introduced the new Colorado Forest Tracker. The goal of the tracker is “to provide a transparent and comprehensive resource for communities, natural resource and fire managers, policy makers, and researchers with a better understanding of completed forest management locations across Colorado.”
Want to learn more about the Forest Tracker?
Highlighted Forest Tracker Q&A (for more frequently asked questions, see the Forest Tracker webpage):
Forest Resilience Planning Guide & General Committee Updates (Speaker: Christina Burri, Committee Chair) (00:52:39 – 00:59:28)
In part inspired by the Colorado Post-Fire Playbook, and in part inspired by multiple communities requesting help from organizations like CFRI and CSFS to prepare for wildfire and improve forest health, the Leveraging Resources Committee has identified the need for a holistic community resource known as a Forest Resilience Planning Guide. This year, the committee drafted an outline for the guide and got generous funding from the CSFS to support its further development. CSFS drafted a scope of work to send out with a request for proposals. The Guide is estimated to be complete by June 2024.
To learn more about the Forest Resilience Planning Guide, see pages 14-15 of the CFHC 2023 Annual Report.
Other Leveraging Resources Committee updates:
At the time of this meeting, the Colorado General Assembly Interim Wildfire Matters Review Committee was discussing bills to advance. Here are the bills under consideration:
Several of the CFHC’s recommendations to the Wildfire Matters Review Committee (available in pages 11-13 of the CFHC 2023 Annual Report) were no longer under consideration by the full Wildfire Matters Review Committee at the time of meeting (though there is still potential for them to be picked up later on). This is a topic for further understanding and discussion in further Legislative Committee meetings.
At the November 17th Legislative Committee meeting, Whitney Johnson of Gates Family Foundation will be sharing legislative recommendations from the all-new Colorado Mass Timber Coalition.
Want to learn more about the Colorado Mass Timber Coalition?
Watch Whitney’s overview at the CFHC July quarterly meeting (~15 minutes, available here) or read an overview of the presentation toward the bottom of the CFCN’s CFHC July 2023 Quarterly Meeting Summary.
Priority duty survey results (Courtney Young)
Per establishing legislation, the CFHC has 10 statutory duties. To help narrow these, CFHC administrators sent a survey out earlier in 2023 asking Councilmembers to rank their priorities. Results are below.
Results in order from highest to lowest:
Councilmembers were asked to discuss their thoughts on the survey results. Most of the discussion revolved around developing a 30-year vision. This is a statutory duty of the CFHC, and most Councilmembers agreed it is very important to have a guiding vision to work toward, but to date it has not yet been worked on.
After much discussion, Councilmembers voted to move the development of a 30-year vision to the top of the priority list, prioritizing it in 2024 while continuing to work on more immediate, short-term priorities at the same time to avoid falling behind on urgent needs. Next steps include:
General update:
Save the dates! 2024 CFHC quarterly meetings:
All meetings are currently scheduled for 9am – 12pm on their respective dates; these times are subject to change.
Matt McCombs, Colorado State Forest Service
Frank Falzone, State Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service
Veronica Medina, Archuleta County Commissioner
Jody Shadduck-McNally, Larimer County Commissioner
Dan Gibbs, Dept. of Natural Resources
Abe Laydon, Douglas County Commissioner
Clyde Church, La Plata County Commissioner
Mark Morgan, Morgan Timber Products:
Julie Stencel, Xcel Energy:
Ethan Bucholz, Colorado State Forest Service:
Christina Burri, Denver Water:
Katie McGrath Novak, Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network:
Vaughn Jones, Dept. of Fire Prevention and Control
Matt Nykiel, National Forest Foundation:
Attend meetings | All Forest Health Council meetings are open to the public and have a segment for public comment toward the end of the meeting.
Agenda and Zoom link will be posted on the Forest Health Council webpage at least 24 hours ahead of the meeting. The Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network will also distribute meeting information when we receive it.
2024 meeting dates | Save the dates for our 2024 quarterly meetings:
Meeting summaries | The CFCN compiles summaries like this, along with other relevant resources, on our page Keeping Up With the Colorado Forest Health Council.
Contact | Katie McGrath Novak, Coordinator, Colorado Forest Collaboratives Network; Forest Health Council member serving as “an individual employed by or associated with a forest collaborative organization”
