A6
REGION
East Oregonian
National forests receive
$2.7 million in funding
Funding aimed
at reducing
long-term costs of
fire management
By ANN BLOOM
For the East Oregonian
ENTERPRISE — The
Wallowa Whitman and
Umatilla national forests
will receive $2.7 million
to improve forest resil-
iency, reduce long-term
costs of fire management
and improve watershed
conditions across North-
east Oregon and Southeast
Washington.
Alyssa Cudmore, Forest-
land Program manager and
coordinator for Wallowa
Resource’s My Blue Moun-
tains Woodland Partner-
ship, said the total invest-
ment could exceed $40
million over the next 10
years, if Congress contin-
ues to fund this program.
“We are deeply excited
that the Northern Blue
Mountains Collaborative
will be receiving fund-
ing from the Collaborative
Landscape Forest Resto-
ration Project this year after
being ranked the top pro-
posal from across the coun-
try,” she said.
Congress created the
Forest Restoration Project
funding in 2009, intended
to support large-scale for-
est restoration projects
and benefit local commu-
nities using collaborative
approaches to solve forest
health problems.
“In particular, we are
very excited about the CFL-
RP’s ability to implement
all lands’ shared steward-
ship of forest restoration
and fires resilience projects
across the Northern Blues
landscape,” Cudmore said.
Many of the challenges
forests and communities
face today, such as severe
wildfire, invasive species,
insects and disease, she
said, don’t adhere to bound-
aries and don’t stop at fire
lines.
“In order to prepare our
forests to withstand these
natural disturbances we
need solutions that cross
boundaries regardless of
who owns the land,” she
said.
The $2.7 million will
only be used for projects on
federal land managed by the
U.S. Forest Service. How-
ever, this investment will
help leverage other funding
for projects on tribal and
private land adjacent to For-
est Service-managed public
land.
East Oregonian, File
The Wallowa Whitman and Umatilla national forests will re-
ceive $2.7 million to improve forest resiliency, reduce long-
term costs of fire management and improve watershed con-
ditions across Northeast Oregon and Southeast Washington.
According to Cudmore,
these treatments will reduce
overstocked forests with
timber harvest, thinning
and prescribed fire, creat-
ing landscapes and commu-
nities that can better endure
wildfire. All of this will
ultimately support vibrant,
local economies, healthy
watersheds and healthy for-
ests with reduced wildlife
risk, she said.
Cudmore said the con-
cept of shared steward-
ship of the land was evi-
dent throughout the grant
proposal, and emphasized
there were many partners
involved in its creation and
the prioritization of proj-
ects. The project is sup-
ported by the Forest Ser-
vice, the counties within
the Umatilla and Wal-
lowa-Whitman
national
forests, and industry and
conservation groups like
Wallowa Resources, one
of the lead organizations
that worked on the grant
application.
Executive
Director
Nils Christoffersen said
the Northern Blues Col-
laborative, with its found-
ing members serving since
2012, recognized an urgent
need and has long aspired to
scale up the collaborative’s
early success to address res-
toration and rural economic
revitalization in projects,
such as the Lower Joseph
Creek project in Wallowa
County and the East Face
project bordering Union
and Baker counties.
Included in the funding
is money to pay for moni-
toring Forest Service timber
harvest, thinning and pre-
scribed burning projects.
Baker and Wallowa coun-
ties are looking to employ
youths and young adults
to learn and execute forest
monitoring techniques.
“We’re excited that part-
nerships continue to expand
and deepen as we pursue all
lands shared stewardship
across Northeast Oregon
and Southeast Washing-
ton,” Christoffersen said.
“We look forward to the
opportunity this will create
for the next generation of
land stewards to gain jobs
and experience in caring for
this special place.”
Lindsay
Warness,
Woodgrain Millwork in La
Grande’s forest policy and
environmental
manager,
said she was looking for-
ward to working with the
Forest Service and using
the funding to develop proj-
ects that are beneficial and
meet the social, economic
and ecological needs of
both forest and communi-
ties that depend on them.
“This is an exciting
opportunity to increase the
pace and scale of resto-
ration in our area, as well as
provide economic benefits
to our local communities,”
Warness said.
According to Mike Bill-
man, Oregon Department
of Forestry’s Northeast Ore-
gon Federal Forest Resto-
ration program coordinator,
the funding will be instru-
mental in accomplishing
fuel reduction and forest
restoration projects vetted
through the environmental
planning process, but still
in need of funding.
“The Wallowa Whitman
and Umatilla national for-
ests have huge backlogs of
acres needing treatments
and increased funding will
certainly help in attain-
ing some level of catch-
ing up,” Billman said. “It
has been truly inspiring to
watch the stakeholder part-
nerships form and step up
in the process of preparing
the CFLRP proposal and
now draw together to begin
implementation.”
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Political propaganda meets civics
lesson in Athena library workshop
By SHEILA HAGAR
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
ATHENA — Misinfor-
mation campaigns are not
a new political invention,
even as charges of “fake
news” are leveled at daily
headlines.
Take, for example, a
photo of suffragettes taken
in the early 1900s. The
image suggested partici-
pants in the women’s move-
ment were homely and
unrefined.
The implication was that
if you cared about the rights
of women, you must be like
those women.
“If you want to make
someone seem bad, you
make them look bad,” said
educator and librarian
Donna Cohen.
Cohen is the creator
of “Civics for Adults,” a
workshop project she began
more than three years ago
to teach the duties and
rights of citizenship to peo-
ple no longer in school and
remind them how to evalu-
ate media platforms, photos
and messages.
Thanks to COVID-19,
those workshops have gone
virtual, and Athena Pub-
lic Library is sponsoring
Cohen’s “Misinformation:
Fake News and Political
Propaganda” at 6:30 p.m.
on Thursday, Oct. 29.
The event is free, but
space will be limited and
registration is required.
When people can exam-
ine news headlines through
WORKSHOP PROJECT
To reserve a virtual space, call Athena Public Library
at 541-566-2470. Participants will be sent a Zoom link
before the event.
shop, most people can
accept there is misinfor-
mation floating around that
can fool almost anyone
until they dissect it with
knowledge and a nonpar-
tisan perspective, Cohen
added.
“We are touching on
political things, but that’s
not what we are talking
about. We’re talking about,
‘How do you know if a
Facebook post is true?’ I go
through multiple platforms
and I talk about language,”
she said. “Language can be
very emotional, and it can
be used in trying to make
you afraid.”
In political polls, results
can differ widely depend-
ing on wording used to ask
the question, she explained.
“I talk about how to look
at what you are not seeing
or hearing,” Cohen said,
listing America’s economic
data as a primary source of
incomplete and thus mis-
leading information.
OK, jobs are coming
back, but what do they pay
and are they part time or
full time, she queried, not-
ing it’s not always a case of
apples to apples.
Cohen offers time at the
end of workshops for ques-
tions and discussion.
critical thinking, democ-
racy
is
strengthened,
Cohen said, emphasizing
the importance of accu-
rate and nonpartisan civic
knowledge.
Cohen’s goal is to show
her virtual students how
they and everyone else can
be unknowingly influenced
by political and marketing
messages, and create an
awareness of that, she said.
As media seemingly
evolves at a high rate of
speed, Cohen is constantly
updating and refining her
presentation to meet the
challenge.
“One of the first things I
do is show (the audience) a
slide,” she said. “It’s a polit-
ical headline. The first I say
is, ‘I don’t care what you
think about this, but the
issue is how do you tell if it
is true?’”
Cohen walks her listen-
ers through how to verify
an internet address, investi-
gate logos and examine the
authenticity of photos and
other images, she said.
“I am always trying to
balance things,” she said.
“I don’t tell people how to
think. I am giving them the
tools so they can think for
themselves.”
By the end of a work-
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