strategic plan 2025

Goals

During the first year, our focus as an emerging organization will be on foundational

goals that will shape future restoration projects and strategies in collaboration with our

network of watershed partners. Rather than setting specific action items at this stage,

we will prioritize building relationships, refining our approach, and ensuring alignment

with the broader network. Amendments to this plan will be developed through ongoing

discussions with the board and network partners.

1. Uplift the diverse cultural relationships that support and engage with the Sandy

River Watershed.

2. Lead, coordinate, and support community-driven projects.

3. Create a sustainable watershed council organization based on our values.

  • ● Center the Indigenous traditional ecological and cultural knowledge

    ● Establish a network of partner organizations through inclusive relationships

    ● Weave connections and conversations across communities and partners

  • ● Identify restoration projects through multi-stakeholder convenings

    ● Develop environmental education and cultural learning programs for culturally specific communities

    ● Support habitat restoration for fish, wildlife, and plant communities with partners in the watershed

  • ● Identify and practice shared and equitable decision making

    ● Recruit a full roster of board members and staff ensuring a diversity of perspective and experience

    ● Establish sound financial and governance policies aligned with the organization’s mission, vision and values

Partnerships

Since time immemorial Indigenous peoples have tended to the land and water of the

Sandy River Watershed. This area continues to be important to the Indigenous

community today. More recent strategies to improve the health of the Sandy River

Watershed have been implemented by local governments, state and federal agencies,

conservation non-profits, including the former Sandy River Watershed Council since the

listing of coho, Chinook, and chum salmon, and steelhead trout, in the late 1990s.

Restoring native fish populations, especially federally listed salmon and steelhead, and

their habitat, is key to a healthy watershed.

Significant habitat restoration planning and implementation has occurred in the main

stem river and the major tributaries of the Sandy River. The Sandy River Basin

Partnership, composed of local, state, and federal government representatives, and

non-profit organizations, including the former Sandy River Watershed Council formed in

1999. This partnership drafted the Sandy River Basin Anchor Habitat Restoration

Strategy (2007). Investments of millions of dollars into the restoration of the watershed

has resulted in increases in fish populations, based on data from the Oregon

Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Today, there are many community non-profits serving different communities in the

watershed. These include organizations that provide workforce development,

environmental education, community planning, recreation opportunities, and cultural

learning, all which serve to connect the diverse people in the community with the

watershed. The role of the new Sandy River Watershed Council is to work in

partnership with these watershed partners to explore and deliver new restoration

opportunities that further connect the diverse communities to a healthy Sandy River.

Learn More Here