During the start-up phase, 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.

• Uplift the diverse cultural relationships that support and engage with the Sandy River Watershed

  • Center the Indigenous traditional ecological and cultural knowledge

  • Establish a network of partner organizations through inclusive relationships

  • Weave connections and conversations across communities partners

• Lead, coordinate, and support community-driven projects

  • Identify restoration projects through multi-stakeholder consultation

  • Develop environmental educational and cultural learning programs for culturally specific communities

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

• Create a sustainable watershed council organization based on our values

  • 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 2025

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 mainstem 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.