Rogue Forest Partners

It takes all of us, working together, to make our forests more resilient and our communities safer from wildfire.

The Rogue Forest Partners (RFP) are a group of four nonprofits and six public agencies working as one to implement forest restoration projects across both public and private lands in the Rogue Basin.

Rogue Forest Partners come together on common ground, founded in science, partnership, and a mutual recognition of the urgent need for resilient forests and fire-adapted communities. We engage with landowners, conservationists, businesses, tribal leaders, elected officials, and others with an interest in Rogue Basin forests.

Lomakatsi supports RFP with planning and design, implementation and monitoring, community outreach, workforce, and engagement deliverables.

We convene experts in natural and cultural resources — including forestry, public lands, wildlife, conservation, and indigenous fire — to plan, fund, and implement forest restoration projects.

RFP has identified priority projects across the Rogue Basin. These areas, spanning public land and private tracts, are critically important for reducing the risks of extreme wildfires, promoting climate adaptation, and restoring resilience to our landscape. RFP work began in the Applegate and Illinois Valleys in 2020 and continues into 2025.

Upper Applegate Watershed

The Upper Applegate Watershed Restoration Project (UAW) covers 52,000 acres in the Applegate Valley, south of the communities of Ruch and Williams and north of Applegate Lake. The project area is primarily public land managed by the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and the Ashland Resource Area, Medford District, Bureau of Land Management. A targeted area of 18,000 acres has been strategically prioritized for treatment to mitigate wildfire risk and enhance wildlife habitat.

East Applegate Trail

The planning process for the UAW project was a unique collaborative approach between stakeholders and federal agencies that incorporates an all-lands approach to address landscape resilience to disturbance—especially wildfire—and climate change. It reflects the need for forest restoration work in the Applegate Adaptive Management Area that the community has envisioned for decades. With funding from Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB) and additional sources, the Rogue Forest Partners are excited to put years of planning and conversation with the community into action.

West Bear All-Lands Restoration Project

The West Bear All-Lands Restoration Project spans the wildland urban interface west of Bear Creek and the I-5 corridor from Talent to Jacksonville, Oregon. This 27,000-acre project area is one of the most at-risk locations for wildfire in Oregon, with seven of the top 30 most at-risk communities in the state and over 56,000 homes exposed to wildfire. The area’s fragmented ownership, susceptibility to wildfire, the concentration of homes, and economic significance require an immediate and coordinated all-lands stewardship approach.

The goal of the West Bear Project is to reduce wildfire risk to communities and the ecosystem to create a more resilient landscape through strategic ecological restoration and fuels management.

The West Bear Project also includes an education component to increase local community wildfire preparedness. It builds on the adjacent Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project, creating a contiguous landscape for strategic restoration treatments.

Williams Restoration Project

Located in Josephine County, our Williams project spans 6,625 acres adjacent to the small town of Williams, Oregon. Wildfires have threatened the community over the last several years, and residents are eager to see fuels reduced to a manageable level.
Under the guidance of the Rogue Forest Partners and the Lomakatsi Restoration Project, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and several private landowners in the Williams community have come together to actively manage their land, reduce the risk of fire, and enhance ecological conditions as a cross-boundary, all-lands project.

The restoration work planned addresses greatly needed thinning and fuels reduction, located in ecologically strategic and tactically important landscape settings. The project’s desired outcomes are increased open forest and strategic fuels reduction to promote the beneficial use of fire, both prescribed burning, and potentially managed natural ignitions for resource benefit.

Contact

645 Washington Street
Ashland, Oregon 97520

(541) 488-0208
info@lomakatsi.org

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Mission

Restore ecosystems and the sustainability of communities, cultures, and economies.

We acknowledge that Lomakatsi operates programs across the ancestral lands of aboriginal peoples who lived and live in the watersheds of the Willamette River, Rogue River, Klamath River, Umpqua River, and Pit River, in what is now called Oregon and California. From sagebrush hillsides and mixed conifer forests, to oak woodlands and riverine systems, we offer our respect, recognition, and gratitude to the original past, present, and future inhabitants of these landscapes, to whom we dedicate this work.