BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN SOUTHEASTERN OREGON

In the southeastern corner of Oregon, Harney County stretches across 6.5 million acres of high desert, a wide, windswept landscape of sagebrush steppe, pine forest, wetlands and meadow. It’s home to an extraordinary array of wildlife: greater sage grouse, pronghorn, sandhill cranes, redband trout, pygmy rabbits, and nearly two million migratory waterfowl that pass through each year, following the Pacific Flyway.

But it’s also a working landscape. Generations of ranchers and farmers have raised cattle, grown hay, and cut timber here. People know the land, and many feel deeply tied to it. This place has always been tough, but the balance it once held is starting to falter.

In recent years, the pressure has been mounting. Drought has become more severe. Aquifers are being drawn down faster than they can recharge, with groundwater in some areas dropping by up to ten feet a year. Wetlands are drying out, birds are losing vital stopover habitat, and ranchers are struggling to irrigate their fields. Invasive grasses are fuelling more intense wildfires, while juniper encroachment is crowding out native plants and making water even more scarce. At the same time, spring floods are growing more extreme, pushing already vulnerable infrastructure past its limits.

These aren’t isolated events. They’re part of a pattern, one that affects both people and nature, and makes the need for a different kind of approach clearer than ever.

In many places, conservationists and landowners might be at odds. But in Harney County, something unusual is happening. People are sitting at the same table. Thanks to years of groundwork by the High Desert Partnership (HDP), ranchers, conservationists, scientists, tribal leaders, and government agencies have come together to shape a shared future for this landscape - one where livelihoods and ecosystems can both endure.

In 2023, this long-running collaboration took a major step forward. Through the leadership of HDP, a coalition of local partners successfully secured funding through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). The funds will go towards a broad, landscape-scale effort to build resilience across Harney County.

WildLandscapes played a supporting role throughout, helping to shape the proposal, identify conservation priorities, and coordinate across agencies and interests. Our goal was simple: to help ensure that Harney County’s challenges, and its opportunities, were clearly represented, and that the funding would go where it was needed most.

Due to funding cuts from the current administration, the project is now on hold—but no one is walking away. Work is already underway to restore that funding and the critical matching support tied to it. Once secured, the partners, building on nearly two decades of collaboration, will move forward with an ambitious suite of restoration and conservation efforts: improving water retention, restoring wet meadows and stream corridors, reducing wildfire risk through fuel management, and establishing conservation easements that protect key habitats while keeping working lands productive.

This isn’t just about Harney County. It’s a model for what can happen when people choose to work together, when they recognise that healthy land and thriving communities are not in conflict, but completely intertwined. It’s hard work. It takes trust, time, and a lot of listening. But here in the high desert, it’s starting to pay off.