New leadership within the Department of Agriculture, the US Forest Service, and the Willamette National Forest has brought with it new approaches to community engagement and collaboration. Meg Mitchell was appointed as Superintendent of the Willamette National Forest in August of 2009 and Cindy Glick was appointed as the Sweet Home District Ranger in March, 2011. They worked to be responsive to the call from the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and the National Forest Service Chief, Tom Tidwell, to take an “all lands” approach to forest and community resiliency. Toward this end, the Sweet Home Ranger District was actively engaged in bringing key stakeholders together to explore strategies for collaborating on an all lands approach to forest and community resiliency.
This Oregon Solutions effort focused on the Community Corridor Forest and helped project team members identify and prioritize projects in the corridor, including the potential transfer of the Cascadia Cave to public ownership.