Tackling Climate Change Together

Discover four communities demonstrating that unexpected solutions can come from working together, finding common ground and caring for the resources we all depend on.

In 2017, these towns were threatened by the Jolly Mountain fire. Burning for over three months and forcing the evacuation of over 150 area homes, that experience inspired the community to take action.

“It was a wake-up call for our community,” says Darcy Batura, TNC’s director of forest partnerships in Washington, who lives with her family in Roslyn. “The forest hadn't been actively managed in a very long time, and so it was totally overstocked. If that fire had taken hold and come rushing toward the communities, we would have been in big trouble.”

From chance fire to choice fire

Dry forests across the West, including those on Cle Elum Ridge, have evolved to coexist with fire in a regenerative cycle that keeps them healthy. A century of policies and practices that favor immediately putting out fires, and preventing Indigenous cultural burning, have disrupted this cycle and left forests full of excess vegetation, including shrubs and debris that can fuel larger, more destructive fires.

Fire is inevitable—the question is when and under what conditions forests will burn, determining if fire will be a force of destruction or renewal. In the face of climate change, drought and more extreme conditions, it’s important to be prepared.

Building fire resilience together

A controlled burn takes a lot of planning and coordination—from removing excess vegetation, to finding the right weather window, and monitoring the fire on the ground. What makes this work possible is the cooperation of many community partners. One of those partners is Corrie Reagan.

Reagan works for the Kittitas County Fire Protection District as a community health worker. She’s also an emergency medical technician and puts in time with local service nonprofit, HopeSource. If that wasn’t enough, she’s a firefighter, and serves as Roslyn’s fire chief—as a volunteer.

Over the years, Roslyn has become a model in the world of fire preparedness, with community members like Reagan who do their part in a complex but coordinated effort between local and state government, agencies, community organizations and nonprofit partners like TNC.

The Roslyn Fire Department supports the Upper Kittitas County Fuels Crew, which does critical preparations before prescribed burns on Cle Elum Ridge and the surrounding forest. The group institutes Firewise USA, a national program to help communities and individuals reduce their wildfire risk. The team is leading efforts to remove vegetation around homes as potential ignition sources, replace roofs and siding with more fire-resistant materials, and help neighbors who may not be able to take on these projects on their own. Proactively planned evacuation routes help make sure everyone has a safe way out if the town is threatened again.

“It's a good feeling to know we're working together to make sure that the town is safer,” says Reagan.  “If something happens in the town or in the forest, we have a plan that can come together to protect both.”

That cooperation is key on controlled burn days. “There are people from every agency around the county, and everybody jumps in and helps out. You know, it will be a lifesaver if the wildfires ever come through here.”

A Living Laboratory for Conservation

Prescribed fire is just one piece of the work happening on Cle Elum Ridge, where TNC and our partners are bringing together forest restoration, applied science and recreation access for greater conservation impact while serving the surrounding communities.

In a “living laboratory” approach, Cle Elum Ridge provides the opportunity to test new treatments that can inform conservation in similar landscapes. In a recent study, TNC scientists found that strategic thinning of trees can retain snowpack longer, providing more water in the dry season and supporting local agriculture and fish habitat.

“The role of being a land manager over time, and being able to implement science and learn from it and adapt, has really been a gift on this project,” says Batura.

In this living laboratory, TNC has teamed up with Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust and other local partners to build a new trail system that connects the three towns, Cle Elum Ridge and surrounding forests. As a popular recreation area, just 90 minutes from Seattle, these trails benefit community members as well as the local economy. 

For over 126 years, opening and closing the gates that control water entering the Maybell Ditch was a grueling task, requiring a two-hour hike through rugged country to manually operate the system. An old rock dam in the channel made navigation difficult for native and endangered fish and recreational boaters, and the cumbersome gates made it difficult to control the quantity of water flowing into the Maybell Ditch. As drought and the impacts of climate change make it more important to manage water carefully, the community decided it was time for a change.

Led by local input and shared decision making, TNC and Maybell Irrigation District’s engineering and construction teams worked to modernize and enable remote operation of the Maybell Ditch headgate and improve water delivery to agricultural communities. They ensured the boulder placement at the diversion would enhance fish habitat and remove barriers to boat passage. The community joined a collaborative effort with TNC and other partners to secure funding from federal, state and private sources. 

Today, the Maybell headgate can be controlled remotely based on a combination of water user needs and available flows in the Yampa River. The Maybell Irrigation District and its volunteer board work with the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program and the Colorado Division of Water Resources each year to plan and manage water use during irrigation season. 

In 2024 and 2025, over 400 water users from across the West toured the Maybell Diversion to learn about lessons learned from the project. The work at Maybell provides lessons for communities looking to provide a triple benefit to water users, fish habitat and recreation.

Nío Nę P’ęnę́ has long been a gathering place and a source of traditional knowledge and practices, described as the backbone of the region because it provides critical habitats for wildlife, including mountain caribou that migrate through the area.

This region is vulnerable to climate change, and in recent decades, elders observed declining numbers of caribou and moose, melting ice patches and permafrost, and increased wildfire. These concerns brought together local First Nations to discuss their concerns and make a plan to address them. Caribou are intertwined with this landscape, and their presence is key to knowing if actions taken on the ground were successful.

Their conversations led to creating the Nı́o Nę P’ęnę́ Indigenous Knowledge Hub, which enables knowledge sharing between Dene/Dena, Métis, researchers and long-term inhabitants and harvesters, including outfitters, and nurtures collaborative stewardship relationships that stretch across treaties and other political boundaries.

As decisions about the forest's future were made in Washington, D.C., Alaska Natives were largely left out of the process, which pitted the timber industry, conservationists, and Alaska Native Tribes and corporations into seemingly intractable adversarial positions.

In time, however, it became clear that continuing to fight wasn’t serving anyone. Led by Alaska Native organizations, parties to the conflict began meeting to identify their shared goals and priorities. Step by tiny step, a more sustainable approach to managing the forest began to emerge, and the Sustainable Southeast Partnership was formed to bring that approach to life.

Today, the partnership provides a salary match to support community catalysts, a role held in each of its seven member Tribes. Each catalyst elevates locally identified goals, including ensuring access to traditional foods and medicine, restoring forests and streams and promoting sustainable economic development.

Careful stewardship of these lands provides jobs, rich habitat for wildlife and maintained cultural practices. Beyond these benefits, scientists estimate the Tongass stores up to 20% of the carbon held in the U.S. national forests, storage that is globally significant.