Whitebark Institute

The first few months of the second phase of the rffc were devoted to prioritizing future projects and selecting three that will be included in the project for implementation. Whitebark also helped mono county hire one of the three county wildfire mitigation coordinators and assisted with initial orientation. Priorities under the rffc program are to build regional capacity around community and ecosystem resilience as it relates to wildfire, as well as to serve as a project development engine to identify and plan needed projects where they are currently lacking. Key accomplishments of this program include: community wildfire protection planning funds secured and community level work completed and for the town of independence and 40 acres community. Completed plans expected spring 2023. Secured grant from cal fire to address environmental compliance needs on reservation lands owned by tribes in the owens valley. Implementation funding and early stakeholder engagement to support 40 acres fire safe council fuel break project on adjacent federal and ladwp owned lands.the eastern sierra climate & communities resilience project is the forest resilience program's debut project. The project was begun by Whitebark's early leadership, janet hatfield and rick kattelmann, while they were employed at another non-profit based in the northern sierra. Recognizing early on that it would take an entire team to make this project a reality, the decision was made to transition the project to Whitebark. To date this project has been a key driver in the capacity building portion of the rffc helping to attract momentum around local workforce, biomass solutions, and environmental planning capacity for similar smaller scale projects across the region via the eastern sierra pace & scale accelerator project. 637 acres thinning in summer 2022 336 acres piles burned in lakes basin job walk and rfq for 2023 implementation units hired 4 local core interdisciplinary team members to perform nepa on esccrp hired outreach & education coordinator to lead forest resilience education program completion of proposed action + public scoping for esccrp nepa early buildout of gis to support esccrp awarded $3.88 million for additional implementation in reds meadow (targeted 2024) assembly and formalization of financial advisory team for esccrp, began work on early tasks to develop sustainable funding for esccrp rise grant proposal submission to support local workforce development around the forestry climate sector with inyo county, cerro coso and other economic development partners. Funding awarded to lead regional outreach & education of fire related education initiatives in inyo, mono & alpine counties focused on visitors. Established Whitebark as the primary educator and information provider on wildfire related issues in eastern sierra. "working from the home outward" 2021 grant award from sce to conduct summer programming (fy22) in support of defensible space and home hardening within the town of mammoth lakes. Awarded same grant from sce in 2022 to continue programming in fy23. Completed initial wildfire education survey to help guide outreach efforts in coming years.

The forest health program accomplishments in 2022 are summarized below: 637 acres thinning in summer 2022 336 acres piles burned in lakes basin job walk and rfq for 2023 implementation units hired 4 local core interdisciplinary team members to perform nepa on esccrp hired outreach & education coordinator to lead forest resilience education program completion of proposed action + public scoping for esccrp nepa early buildout of gis to support esccrp awarded $3.88 million for additional implementation in reds meadow (targeted 2024) assembly and formalization of financial advisory team for esccrp, began work on early tasks to develop sustainable funding for esccrp rise grant proposal submission to support local workforce development around the forestry climate sector with inyo county, cerro coso and other economic development partners.