Collaborative Groups

The Lake Almanor Watershed Group (LAWG), formerly known as the Almanor Basin Watershed Group (ABWAC), was created in 2005 by the Plumas County Board of Supervisors to address water quality, land use, and critical habitat issues in the Lake Almanor Basin and make policy recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. From 2005 to 2013, LAWG served as an official advisory body to the Plumas County Board of Supervisors, providing recommendations to the county on a range of topics from overnight boat use on Lake Almanor to cloud-seeding. LAWG created a Watershed Management Plan that was approved by the Plumas County Board of Supervisors in 2009 and is intended to guide all efforts by LAWG to protect water quality, critical habitat, and quality of life in the Lake Almanor Basin. Since 2009, LAWG raises money each year to hire an independent contractor to sample the lake. Sierra Institute has been a part of LAWG since its origins in the early 2000s and provides watershed coordination for the group.

Founded in 2009, the Burney Hat Creek Community Forest and Watershed Group (BHCCFWG) is a collaborative forestry effort dedicated to improving social, environmental, and economic conditions in the Burney Creek and Hat Creek watersheds. The collaborative footprint encompasses 364,250 acres of public, private, and Tribal lands, and the communities of Burney, Johnson Park, Hat Creek, Cassel, and Old Station. In recent decades, local communities have experienced high rates of unemployment and increased risks of high-severity wildfires, issues the collaborative actively works to mitigate. The group's vision is to create a fire-resilient forest ecosystem with sustainable populations of wildlife, fisheries and habitat, functioning and restored watersheds and water quality, protected cultural resources and appropriate recreational opportunities while also helping to support quality of life, jobs for diverse community members, and economic benefits in local communities. BHCCFWG receives federal support through the U.S. Forest Service’s Collaborative Forestry Landscape Restoration (CFLR) program, augmenting available local resources to advance landscape-scale fuels reduction and forest health projects through coordinated public-private efforts.

The Sierra Institute’s Sierra to California All-Lands Enhancement (SCALE) project is a mechanism for collaboration between collaborative groups working on landscape-scale forest restoration and community improvement across California. This project developed out of Sierra Institute’s broader work at the intersection of forest management and rural community well-being. By promoting successful collaboration at the community-level, the SCALE project promotes work on the ground that restores forest resilience, supports local economies, and builds strong communities.

The Landowner Engagement Subcommittee (LES) is a Subcommittee of the South Lassen Watersheds Group and currently includes approximately twenty non-industrial private landowners. This Subcommittee has diverse stakeholder representation, including large-scale ranchers managing over 1,000 acres of rangeland and timberland; the Mill Creek, Summit Springs, and Mineral Homeowners Associations; and the Mineral and Mill Creek Firewise Committees; community leaders; and business owners. Despite the diverse backgrounds of the participating landowners, all members are interested in fuels reduction and forest resilience, meadow restoration, and hazard tree removal.

Private landowners are interested in managing their land and conducting responsible forest management as a means of preserving the valuable forest and water resources in the area. The Subcommittee provides a space to strengthen the peer-to-peer landowner network, plan and implement fuels reduction projects and access existing landowner assistance programs, and facilitate cross-boundary work between private landowners and agencies.