The Challenge of Long-term Implementation Sustaining CWPP’s

Implementation Challenges  New and emerging players;  Shifting priorities of elected officials and managers;  Reevaluation of risk criteria to improve the prioritization process;  Maintaining fuel reduction project momentum;

Improving Productivity  Applying objectives at a regional scale;  Moving to a neighborhood level;  Developing biomass uses;  Establishing a system to record fuel treatments;  How to effectively monitor projects?

Varied Community Interests  Suppression and public safety  Fuel reduction and fire risk  Forest health  Prevention education/Defensible space  High priority community values  Biomass utilization

The Need for Collective Action  Community/multi-party based;  Collaboration that build community relationships and abilities;  On a scale that supports the goal of “communities living with wildfire;”  Supported by continual, shared learning

Key Contributors to Productive Implementation?  Wildfire definitions based on multiple interests (or frames);  Scales that create regional strategies and local action;  Sharing knowledge through extended community education;  Community and agency leaders who bridge (or intermediaries) networks, organizations, and scales.

The critical roles of community concerns/interests The critical roles of community concerns/interests  what a CWPP will emphasize,  who gets involved,  and the extent to which it is “owned” by the community and agencies; These outcomes affect long term implementation and productivity

Multiple Concerns broaden community participation  A risk to lives, property and communities;  Addressing forest health-related ecological conditions;  Landscape changes due to urban development;  Biomass utilization  Others?

Scales for Strategy and Action  Regional or state scale networks focus on strategic landscape-level planning, coordinating treatment response, creating prevention education, and sharing lessons learned.  while community, neighborhood, and county-scale networks stress on the ground mitigation and prevention actions.  Combining these approaches can produce a balanced and sustainable range of community protection projects.

Communities that learn together strengthen implementation  Participants may begin by map values-at-risk, and organizing a variety of resources;  Establish shared understandings of the wildfire problem,  Heightened their knowledge of potential actions and available resources,  Create an expanded network of individuals and organizations.

Intermediary or Bridging Individuals or Organizations  Have key contacts within communities and organizations, ;  Play strong leadership and bridging roles among multiple entities.  Mobilize internal and external resources.  Possess the time and skills to organize the knowledge/skills of participants to achieve shared goals.

Suggestions to maintain effective implementation  Embed into larger county level CWPPs to achieve a landscape level projects;  Link to a county-level hazard mitigation plan to utilize resources effectively;  Tie the CWPP to Community FireWise Plans to incorporate neighborhood prevention, education, and mitigation initiatives;  Integrate with federal or state wildfire resource management and fuel reduction plans to maximize WUI protection;  Build bio-mass uses to establish a forest- restoration, economic focus.

Maintain Enduring Collective Relationships  Establish implementation and monitoring committees;  Set and update short-term, achievable goals;  Hire or appoint a CWPP Coordinator;  Sustain community education through effective working relationships, dedicated resources, and multi-scale particpation.

Key Lessons  Maximize achievements by involving multiple community interests, integrating diverse social scales, identifying bridge-building entities, and supporting shared learning;  Keep participant’s informed and engaged by strengthening continual accountability through monitoring

Collaboration and Productive Implementation  Collaboration builds multiple abilities and skills needed for collective action;  Successful wildfire mitigation occurs through long-term implementation;  Sustaining implementation of CWPP’s is the ultimate measure of the successes resulting from building and integrating collaborative abilities, relationships, and resources.