Oregon Cattlemen's Assoc Announce RESTOR
In response to the devastating rangeand fires near the Oregon Idaho border Curtis Martin president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association announced the creation of RESTOR, a task force dedicated to providing assistance and education, building understanding and awareness, and facilitating improvements regarding current and future wildfires in the state. I’m Susan Allen stay tuned for Open Range. RESTOR is the Oregon Cattlemen’s Associations newly formed task force designed to help ranchers affected by wildfires. RESTOR was put in place to help direct assistance to fire-affected individuals, along with facilitating information to help improve responses to wildfires. After several community meetings last week themes for RESTOR emerged that included the importance of extinguishing rangeland fires quickly so as not to lose plant cover which has dramatic impacts on livestock operations and wildlife such as sage grouse. Also that the most important management strategy is to keep the remaining large tracks of high desert habitat from burning. RESTOR will work so that additional information, greater flexibility, and rapid response to livestock producers is achieved regarding access to federal lands in fire-affected areas, so ranchers can make important short and long-term business decisions. The need to reauthorize important U.S. Department of Agriculture disaster relief which expired in September 2011 for loans and restoration costs will also be part of the RESTOR task force. .
