Hells Bells, October 2020

Speak Up for Old & Large Trees

The USFS is accepting comments on the 21" Rule through 11:59 pm Tuesday October 13th.

If you haven't yet, you can enter online comments here, and encourage your friends to do the same. We need all the voices we can muster to speak up on behalf of big trees.

You can read more about the rushed efforts to eliminate the 21" Rule in our blog.

The USFS online submittal portal is easy to use and quick to complete. If the portal is not working, you can email your comments here. GHCC Conservation Director Veronica reminds us that "Short and sweet is great. Non-technical is great."

Your voice matters! Please speak up today!

Wyden Town Hall Oct. 13th

Another Opportunity to Speak Up for Wild Places, Wildlife, and Wild Rivers!

Please join U.S. Senator Ron Wyden for a live on-line town hall on Wednesday, October 14 at 11:30am. It will be hosted by Town Hall Project for residents of Umatilla, Union, Morrow, and Wallowa counties.

Anybody wanting to watch Senator Wyden’s virtual regional town hall on Wednesday can go to this Facebook link. Video at that link is available as well to people who don't have a Facebook account.

Residents of Umatilla, Union, Morrow, and Wallowa counties who would like to participate by asking Senator Wyden a question can fill out this form for consideration by Town Hall Project.

Welcome to Tiyana Casey

October 12th is Indigenous People's Day

GHCC has been working hard over the last couple of years to engage deeply and responsibly with our Tribal neighbors in the region. We have a lot to learn.

On that note, we couldn't be more thrilled to welcome Tiyana Casey - a Columbia Plateau Native with a great sense of humor and an impressive work history of conservation and education work in our region - to the Blues to Bitterroots Coalition, as our partnership's Indigenous Relations Liaison. We'll be working closely with Tiyana over the next 12 months to co-create (and remember) tools and best practices for empowering indigenous knowledge keepers present and future in regional conservation leadership.

This exciting work is possible thanks to a grant from the Network for Landscape Conservation Catalyst Fund.
Stay tuned for a proper introduction to Tiyana, coming soon!

CHANGES

GHCC bids farewell to Maren Peterson, Communications & Development Director, who has moved on to other adventures. We wish her the best!

The Fall Gala is going to be different this year - watch for more information on this online great fun(d)raiser coming up soon!

We're prpeapring to move the GHCC office to a new downtown La Grande location - challenging, exciting, exhausting and rewarding as we go through 20 years of files, shelves, and drawers!

We are saddened to announce the loss of a friend, Bill Whitaker, who passed away recently - we miss him deeply, his gentle humar, warm smile, and understanding heart. Our condolences to his family and all his friends.

BEAVERS

Beavers and Wildfire: a stop-motion story by Emily Fairfax

This short video tells the story of why beaver are so important in the landscape in a delightful way.

Read about GHCC's Beaver Survey volunteer opportunites here and help put beavers on the map. Documenting the West's greatest ecosystem engineer is a great activity to inspire naturalists of all ages!

You can also catch up on the latest news on the NE Oregon Beaver survey here at INaturalist.

Not sure beavers are up to the job? Here's a quick video from USA Today of a beaver pulling a tree across 4 lanes of traffic!

Sponsor of the Month:

Thank you to the Network for Landscape Conservation Catalyst Fund for funding connections work!

Manage your preferences | Opt out using TrueRemove™
Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.
View this email online.

105 Fir St. Suite 327 PO Box 2768
La Grande, OR | 97850 US

This email was sent to .
To continue receiving our emails, add us to your address book.