Public Engagement and the Collaborative Process 

Pre-planning for the Dead Mountain EA was directly informed by a collaborative process. This process involved community members, agency partners, businesses, and the general public in informing the direction of projects on our public lands. Collaboration with the public matters because it helps create better solutions by including the people who are most affected by decisions, building trust between organizations and communities, and ensuring local knowledge and concerns are addressed early in the process. 

To gather meaningful input for projects like Dead Mountain, SWFC carefully plans processes designed to maximize engagement with the most impacted people. In the Dead Mountain process, this included several field tour, a goal-setting workshop, and four Landscape Planning Collaborative Committee meetings to solidify what are called “Zones of Agreement” or “ZOA’s”.  ZOA’s are the shared goals and objectives that represent what is acceptable to the entire collaborative group. You can find the Dead Mountain ZOA’s here. 

In September 2024, we held our latest field tour to see Dead Mountain. After a fire in the late 1960’s, Dead Mountain was heavily replanted. The area is now dense with trees and in desperate need of thinning. The tour participants discussed the benefits of prescribed fire, and the preparation required to be able to put fire on the landscape, and what fuels reduction and thinning would look like in this landscape. This was followed by a workshop in November that brainstormed all the possible goals and desired outcomes that the group was interested in. In February 2025, after a series of roundtable discussions, these ZOA’s were finalized. If you would like to register your support for these ZOA’s, please click HERE and complete the form.