Posted 12.16.2024 by OFC Coordinator Anna Steltenkamp
Olympic National Forest FY24 Review and Orchard Loner Project Sold
The 2024 fiscal year ended for the Olympic National Forest on September 30th, and our partners at the Forest Service shared during our quarterly call in late October that they had a FY24 timber target of 19 million board feet and closed at 17 million board feet sold. During FY24, the Forest Service sold the Orchard Loner restoration thinning project, a sale that the Olympic Forest Collaborative worked on, in September to Murphy Plywood. This sale is expected to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in retained receipts to fund local aquatic and watershed restoration projects.
Olympic Forest Collaborative Welcomed New Coordinator
In early November, the OFC welcomed a new coordinator, Anna Steltenkamp. She is a multimedia storyteller, educational and community engagement facilitator, and interdisciplinary researcher with a passion for agroecological and biocultural restoration. Anna does this role alongside her work as the Outreach Coordinator for Dirt Corps—a Seattle-based group dedicated to environmental restoration, green stormwater infrastructure, and urban forestry—and as a Board Member for the Society for Ecological Restoration Northwest Chapter. Anna graduated Summa Cum Laude from Duke University with a BA in Cultural Anthropology, Environmental Sciences, and Documentary Media, and then completed the Climate Change and Health Certification program at the Yale School of Public Health.
OFC and ONF Jointly Applied for a 2025 Forest Service Training Program
In November, OFC submitted an application with our partners at ONF for the Best Practices for Collaboration Training, a two-day training for unit staff and collaborative partners that is hosted by the Forest Service and Sustainable Northwest in FY25. This is a foundational program that teaches best practices for developing zones of agreement, improving communication, leveraging collaborative resources, and performing multi-party monitoring.
2024 RAC Grant Submitted and Presented for Tiger Tail Project
In late November, the OFC in partnership with American Whitewater presented to the Olympic Peninsula Resource Advisory Council (RAC) their proposal for a $12,000 grant for the Tiger Tail: ONF Forest Health and Local Economic Benefit Thinning Project. Tiger Tail is a 170-acre commercial thinning project area in the Wynoochee watershed. Since 2023, Olympic Forest Collaborative (OFC) and consultant Resilient Forestry have been working side-by-side with ONF on this forest health project. The ONF has asked OFC and Resilient Forestry to fill a capacity gap and perform Cut-Tree Marking. This grant would fund these final steps to enable Tiger Tail to be put out to bid, awarded, and completed by ONF.