Boulder Watershed Collective
Community Collaboration on Wildfire & Forest Health - Nederland & Coal Creek
Maya MacHamer
Executive Summary
Building off the 2021 Gold Hill MENV Capstone project, this project similarly seeks to engage students to develop processes for building trusted relationships with communities in the Boulder Creek Watershed. Through trust and the reciprocal exchange of ideas, we hope to align more communities with the interconnected goals of the ‘National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy’: 1) create fire resilient landscapes, 2) create fire adapted communities (responsive to a changing climate), and 3) provide safe and effective fire response. The original ‘Gold Hill Collaboration on Wildfire & Forest Health’ project engaged students in both ecological and community monitoring as Gold Hill residents learned about and interacted with an 100-acre local forest restoration project. The MENV team used pilot survey results, in-depth interviews, and community events they planned (e.g. Community Visioning) to better understand community dynamics, forest management and wildfire risk perceptions, and visions for a fire-adapted Gold Hill. The team also monitored wildlife to gather baseline data on long-term ecosystem trends related to the restoration project. Our collective team recognized that often successful tactics to engage with communities require 1) a more intimate baseline understanding of the multifaceted and localized factors that influence decision making and management support (e.g. values, beliefs, norms, historical context etc.), and 2) involve community initiatives that are responsive and co-created by community stakeholders. This 2022 project uses the same placed-based approach, but broadens the geographic scope to focus on the communities of Nederland and Coal Creek with these two key project components in mind.