Tribal Hands on the Land

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Tribal Hands on the Land is a short film centered on Lomakatsi Restoration Project’s Tribal Ecological Forestry Training Program, exploring how collaboration with tribes and tribal communities through ecological restoration initiatives is setting the stage for the return of cultural fire and building more resilient ecosystems and communities.

**Partnering with tribes to build workforce capacity**
For the past 20 years, Lomakatsi’s Tribal Ecological Forestry Training Program has provided training to hundreds of participants, through partnerships with tribes, tribal communities, natural resource agencies, and nonprofit organizations, with the goal of building workforce capacity to conduct forest and aquatic restoration and resiliency work across ancestral lands.

Lomakatsi layers this training model into landscape-scale forest and watershed restoration initiatives where we serve as one of the principal partners of multi-year agreements, working across thousands of acres of forests and miles of streams.

As part of these large, long-term ecological restoration efforts, tribal young adults work side-by-side with ecologists, biologists, archeologists, geomorphologists, and a multitude of specialists including seasoned restoration crews, as they work to create resilient ecosystems, fire-adapted communities, and healthy wildlife habitat across Oregon and northern California.

**Highlighting the 2022-2023 training program**
Most recently, 15 tribal young adults ages 18-26 completed a year-long training and employment program that began in October 2022, working across Klamath, Jackson, and Josephine counties in Oregon, and Modoc County in northeastern California. Tribal trainees earned professional certifications in chainsaw operation, wildland and prescribed fire, cultural monitoring, technical forestry, and First Aid/CPR under the guidance of Lomakatsi’s trainers, restoration forestry specialists, and cultural experts. They also had the opportunity to engage and learn from many tribal, agency, non-profit, and community partners.

The film features interviews with the crew members, as well as tribal elders and community members, elected tribal leaders, and Lomakatsi’s staff and trainers. Highlighted projects incorporate restoration science and practice with time-tested Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge, through partnerships with the Klamath Tribal community, the Kosealekte Band of the Pit River Tribe, and the Fort Bidwell Indian Tribe.

Over the course of the program, the crew worked across ancestral landscapes—including tribal trust, federal, municipal, and private lands—accomplishing over 1,000 acres of ecological thinning and fuels reduction, prescribed fire, and cultural, wildlife, and forest inventory surveys.

They conducted understory restoration, planted hundreds of native trees and shrubs as part of riparian restoration projects, removed acres of noxious weeds, and supported cultural revitalization efforts in their ancestral homelands—including at the Plaikni Koke – Edison Chiloquin Trust Lands and within the Fort Bidwell Indian Reservation.

Crew members also contributed to collaborative, landscape-scale restoration projects across southern Oregon, including the West Bear All-Lands Restoration Project, Rogue Forest Restoration Initiative, Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project, and post-fire restoration Bear Creek, as part of the Ashland Creek Ponds Riparian and Ecocultural Restoration Project.

**Looking Ahead**
Lomakatsi continues to offer our Tribal Ecological Forestry Training Program and looks forward to welcoming a new cohort of young tribal adults this fall. We thank the many partners and funders who make this program possible, with special thanks to videographer Ammon Cluff for bringing this video to life.