In its 30th year, Ashland-based nonprofit contracts with federal, state, local agencies to help manage forests 

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news 

Forest restoration and wildfire mitigation projects have been halted and employees laid off as freezes of federal funds impact Lomakatsi Restoration Project, an Ashland-based nonprofit organization. 

Nearly two of every three dollars — 65% — of the nonprofit’s budget for 2025 came from the Inflation Reduction Act or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — two pots of money affected by broad freezes of federal funds by the Trump administration. 

Of 15 employees “hopefully temporarily” laid off, Lomakatsi Executive Director Marko Bey told Ashland.news eight were tribal members. Positions affected range from wildland firefighter to administrative staff. 

It was difficult to lay off staff knowing the organization had secured the funds to keep them employed, he said. The organization has also halted or delayed projects — including some controlled burns. 

Traditionally much of Lomakatsi’s work followed a pattern: Co-develop projects with partner agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service (part of the Department of Agriculture) or the Department of the Interior, put the project out to bid, bring in between 20 and 25% non-federal matching dollars, do the work, invoice the agencies, and be reimbursed. 

Frozen funds at the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Fish & Wildlife, Department of the Interior and the Forest Service have made these funds inaccessible to Lomakatsi. 

“(We have) $250,000 payrolls every two weeks — you can only maintain that for so long without knowing when we are going to get reimbursed for the work we’ve accomplished across thousands and thousands of acres. … We’re looking at stuff we implemented before Thanksgiving, before Christmas, and some in the beginning of January, that we’re waiting to get compensated for,” he said. 

Around $500,000 of such funds are outstanding, he said, and it wouldn’t make sense to move forward with other projects not knowing when the funding freeze is going to be lifted. Until already completed work is reimbursed, it’s hard to start anything else, Bey said. The ripple effects in the forestry industry throughout the region could continue with projects halted indefinitely. 

“We contract hundreds of boots. … We are the primary partner, we do business with about 15 different forestry outfits in the for-profit sector, timber operators, helicopter operators,” Bey said. 

Administrative staff are spending time in meetings concerning “mitigation of resources” and “damage control,” though not without points of optimism. Despite being unable to work during January, by the end of February burning resumed again on around 35 acres in the West Bear project area, a project applying hazardous fuels reduction stretching from Talent to Jacksonville. 

Bey said the West Bear project has around 20 to 40 piles of fuels per acre. Working in Oregon, Washington and California, Lomakatsi treats about 35,000 acres a year. The window to safely burn hazardous fuels can be closed by rising temperatures as early as April, Bey said. 

“Some of the densest, most fire-prone places in the western United States is where we’re working in Southern Oregon,” he said. 

Lomakatsi celebrated its 30 year anniversary in January, Bey said. Through the decades, the nonprofit has weathered multiple administrations, from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump to Joe Biden and back to Trump. 

“We know how to pivot, we know how to access federal resources needed. But we’ve never seen anything like this — nobody has — and this has been a very interesting administration shift,” Bey said. 

Lomakatsi doesn’t align red or blue politically, but shoots for “the radical middle.” 

“We want to take care of the ecosystem, we want to reduce wildfire hazard, we want to employ loggers, we want to get logs to the mill in an ecologically responsible way, we want to keep the forestry industry alive, we want to keep our diverse work forces alive — who could argue with that? That’s a win-win to everyone,” he said.

The Jan. 27 order from the Office of Management and Budget aimed to halt spending for “agency grant, loan and federal assistance programs” because of a “duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through presidential priorities,” the memo said. 

“The use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” the memo said. 

The New York Times counted 2,600 federal programs under scrutiny and potentially affected by the Trump administration freeze of federal funds, even as the effort has continuously been reshaped by the judicial system, as previously reported by the Associated Press. 

Lomakatsi staff will travel to Washington D.C. in the second week of March to “tell the story, the successes,” to lawmakers, Bey said. Staff have already sent information and entered into correspondence with red and blue offices at the legislative level, citing ongoing engagement and an “eagerness to learn” from the office of Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkely, a Democrat, and recently begun correspondence with Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz’s office regarding meeting in D.C.

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at morganr@ashland.news.

Related stories:

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What can we do to protect communities and natural resources from wildfire? (July 10, 2024)

Ashland Pond: A ‘living outdoor classroom’ (June 1, 2024)

Curbing severe wildfire in Oregon depends on urgency, scale of controlled burns by state and feds (May 23, 2024)

Dead and dying trees in the watershed present fire hazard, council told (March 19, 2024)