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Now Hiring! Conserve Waterbirds & Working Lands in Oregon
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Ducks Unlimited, Inc. (DU) are hiring a Conservation & Agricultural Specialist to further conservation delivery of NRCS Conservation Implementation Strategies (CIS) and other working lands conservation programs in southeast Oregon. This position will be based in Lakeview,…
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Klamath Basin Farming and Wetland Collaborative Regional Conservation Partnership Program
The Klamath Basin’s wetlands historically provided an abundance of important year-round habitat for waterfowl and waterbirds. Those same wetlands—and the water that feeds them—also sustain fisheries and people, from farmers and ranchers to the tribes who have called this place home for time immemorial. Wetlands were and remain a vital part of the ecosystem; a…
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Field Notes: In the Arena
Field Notes is a compilation of first-person essays composed across many years by IWJV partners, board members, and staff. Our professional work in collaborative conservation is inspired by our personal experiences, relationships, and conversations in the field. That “field” can look very different depending on the work at hand: Sometimes it is one of grass hay…
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Giving the Klamath Basin “A Fighting Chance”
The Klamath Basin was once the crown jewel of the Southern Oregon Northeastern California (SONEC) region, supporting sixty percent of the wetland-dependant birds that breed and migrate in the Pacific Flyway. This area once contained more than 450,000 acres of wetland habitat and supported robust populations of fish and wildlife species throughout the watershed, from…
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Video: One Minute of Migratory Bird Zen
Late October is the height of autumnal waterfowl migration in the Klamath Basin. The wetlands of this landscape have long supported the ducks and geese of the Pacific Flyway as they wing southward in the fall, and again as they head to their northern breeding grounds in the spring. Once referred to as “the Everglades…
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Miller Island Easement, Restoration a Boon for Klamath Basin Wetland Habitat
Where do birds turn, as the Klamath Basin’s wildlife refuges turn to dust? And where can the Basin’s public lands waterfowl hunters go, now that the historic flocks of migrating ducks and geese no longer have habitat to use at the refuges?Thanks to multi-agency collaboration, a recently restored parcel of Oregon Department of Fish and…
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Intermountain Insights: Wetland Loss in the Pacific Flyway
A study from the Intermountain West Joint Venture and partners, Functional wetland loss drives emerging risks to waterbird migration networks, identified trends of severe wetland drying in the Southern Oregon Northeastern California (SONEC) region and California’s Central Valley, two of the most significant sites for migratory waterbirds in the Pacific Flyway. The good news? Managers can…
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Reconnection + Renewal on the Sycan River
An oxbow restoration on a tribally held easement on a working Sycan River ranch is a glimpse into a brighter future in the Klamath Basin. People wanted to be able to develop and farm and ranch and use the land as much as possible. When you do that, you start levying everything off so it…
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Klamath Basin Farming and Wetlands Coalesce in RCPP
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it is investing $3.8 million in the Klamath Basin Farming and Wetland Collaborative project in the Klamath Basin through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). This investment will bring some much-needed relief to farmers and migratory birds over the next…
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The Dodo of the Desert
The following story is by Julia Babcock with the Oregon Sage-grouse Conservation Partnership. My father worked in the genetics lab in the 1970’s. It gave him the sense that anything was possible; that humans and nature could collaborate to shape both DNA and destiny. Growing up, my father told me that my life’s work was…
