SCALE 2026

Sierra Institute is excited to announce that registration for SCALE 2026 is now open! SCALE is a network of collaboratives working towards healthy forests and watersheds in California and beyond.

Categories: Community Based Natural Resource ManagementPublished On: June 4, 2026By Chelsea Aguilera

What is SCALE?

SCALE (Sierra to California All Lands Enhancement) is a network of collaborative groups and organizations that has been meeting since 2014 to explore solutions for some of our region’s biggest landscape management challenges. The annual in-person SCALE conference is an opportunity to deepen collaborative efforts, learn from each other, and devise real solutions to problems with others working hard for state and federal policy, high-quality restoration work, and community development work at scale.

Who should attend?

SCALE is for organizations, agencies, and Tribes working for conservation, for natural resource management, and for communities. This space is for those who are trying to deepen their connection to an established network of collaboratives, to workshop with other professionals facing similar challenges, to ignite new connections, and to explore concrete steps for addressing pressing community needs.

What are some of the benefits of attending SCALE?

From state and federal agency leadership, to Tribal community leaders, to regional and local organizations and representatives, SCALE’s strength is in putting a lot of different perspectives into the same space. Together, participants share updates on current policies, funding opportunities, and collaborative actions happening throughout California. We workshop pressing topics like meaningful Tribal engagement, collaborative frameworks, wood and biomass utilization, emerging trends and themes in natural resource management, and successful approaches to scaling up forest restoration. At the end of two days, attendees take home valuable learnings to apply to the real challenges they face in their home communities.

This Year’s Themes:

From Policy to Practice

Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities that have arisen from recent federal and state policy changes. Presenters will provide a comprehensive overview of new policies affecting forest and watershed management, and their implications for collaboratives engaged in landscape-scale restoration efforts. Particular emphasis will be placed on biomass utilization, the U.S. Forest Service’s organizational realignment, and Indigenous stewardship and land management.

Funding at Landscape-Scale

Examine effective funding strategies for implementation-ready, landscape-scale projects. Speakers and panelists will discuss current and emerging funding opportunities that support project work at scale across a range of sources. While recent SCALE conferences have focused on funding collaborative capacity and large-scale planning efforts, this session will shift the focus to a critical next step: how to fund and deliver large-scale implementation at the pace required.

Innovative Solutions for Collaborative and Landscape-Level Challenges

Learn innovative solutions from leaders navigating challenges like workforce development, climate change adaptation, and cross-jurisdictional restoration in the collaborative field. Topics will include innovative strategies for implementing efficient private land treatments, the connection between forest restoration and water resources, expanding Tribal leadership in co-management and cultural burning, and understanding rural economic and employment impacts. This will be an opportunity to learn from one another and return to our home landscapes with new lessons to apply to these complex, persistent issues.

Past Themes Include: