Webinar: Explore the Fix Our Forests Act
Details
Colorado Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) invites you to join our conversation with forest science experts on the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA), a bipartisan proposal to reduce wildfire risk, strengthen forest health, and safeguard one of our nation’s most vital resources: our forests.
Note: This event is organized by our parent organization. We are helping promote the event but are not hosting. Please use this link to RSVP for the event and receive the zoom link and other communications directly from the organizers.
Why It Matters
Healthy forests are not only the foundation of vibrant ecosystems and clean water, they also absorb roughly 12% of America’s carbon emissions each year. Yet intensifying wildfires are turning these carbon sinks into carbon sources, threatening our climate, communities and natural environment. The Fix Our Forests Act seeks to meet this challenge head-on with commonsense reforms that speed up science-based restoration, empower communities, and ensure federal agencies have the tools and staff to succeed.
In this webinar, we’ll discuss:
- The need and rationale for the Fix Our Forests Act,
- How it will provide for science-based fire mitigation treatments to cut the risk of catastrophic wildfire,
- Fix Our Forest Act’s focus on public transparency and community input, and
- How it will preserve the integrity of mature forests, wildlife habitat, and water and air resources.
Meet Our Speakers:
Matt McCombs serves as Colorado’s State Forester and the Director of the Colorado State Forest Service. Prior to that role, he served in a variety of leadership roles in WA, CO and NC for the USDA Forest Service, beginning as a Presidential Management Fellow in 2008. His career has spanned both natural resources and forest management, as well as other government work, having served as an aide to members of Congress in both Colorado and Montana. McCombs is also a veteran, having deployed to Iraq in 2003 as a combat medic with the Colorado Army National Guard and serving as a Medical Service Officer in the Montana Air National Guard, where he achieved the rank of captain before leaving the service in 2012.
G. Sam Foster retired in 2014 after a 38-year career in forestry and natural resources, including leadership roles in the forest industry, academia, and 23 years with the U.S. Forest Service, where he finished as Director of the Rocky Mountain Research Station. He later founded Trees and Trees Associates in Durango, CO, and continues to volunteer with the Wildfire Adapted Partnership, Mountain Studies Institute, the Wildfire and Watershed Protection Fund, and the National Association of Forest Service Retirees.
Ken Skog is a retired Forest Service researcher who was Project Leader for the Economics, Statistics and Life Cycle Analysis research group at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. His research included participation on teams that evaluated the economics of wildfire hazard reduction treatments, including the harvesting costs of treatments, the potential revenue from treatments and the resulting acreage of highest hazard that could be treated with and without subsidies.
Dave Atkins is a forester and forest ecologist with more than 37 years of experience at the U.S. Forest Service, where he worked until his retirement eleven years ago. He is a certified sustainable forest landowner through the American Forest Foundation and remains deeply engaged in forest stewardship. Dave serves on the steering committees of both the Montana Prescribed Fire Council and the Montana Wood Products Retention Roundtable, and is a past president of the Montana Forest Owners Association.
Please contact the event organizers directly with any questions: pikespeakccl@gmail.com.