Celebrating Inter-Tribal Training Program Graduates

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Published October 4, 2024

On Tuesday, we celebrated 11 young adults from the Klamath tribal community who completed Lomakatsi’s 9-month Tribal Youth Ecological Forestry Training Program, through the Oregon Conservation Corps (OCC). These youth ages 18-26 earned nationally recognized professional certifications and accomplished over 1,600 acres of fuels reduction and forest health treatments around communities in Jackson and Klamath counties. Their work spanned the Edison Chiloquin Tribal Trust Lands and adjacent private tribally allotted lands, U.S. Forest Service – Fremont-Winema National Forest, U.S. Forest Service- Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, and Bureau of Land Management Medford District, as well as private lands in the wildland urban interface, including as part of the West Bear All-Lands Restoration Project. Through this paid-to-train program, crew members engaged with tribal elders, elected officials, and natural resource professionals from tribal departments and federal and state agencies, providing opportunities to learn about career pathways in a variety of related fields.

At the celebration, Tribal Council representatives from The Klamath Tribes, tribal elders and community members, the U.S. Forest Service, BLM, Oregon Department of Forestry, The Corps Network, and the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission joined Lomakatsi leadership to hear from the crew members about their experience and share words of encouragement. Crew members talked about the sense of camaraderie they’ve developed over the past year, growing confidence in their skills, and the different pathways that the program has opened, including in wildland fire. We’re very proud of the entire crew for all their hard work and dedication to healthier forests and safer communities in their ancestral homelands around Chiloquin and Klamath Falls, the Rogue Basin, and beyond.

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We are grateful to OCC (Oregon Youth Works) for providing the majority of funding for this program session—and three other Lomakatsi inter-tribal and multicultural crew cohorts over the past few years. This foundational funding, combined with additional federal, state, and private philanthropic investment, has allowed us to expand the program to a year-long—or longer—model, and Lomakatsi is now a federal Indian Youth Service Corps partner, a member of The Corps Network, and an implementing partner of American Climate Corps.

Published October 4, 2024

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