Redwood Forest Foundation hires new director

FORT BRAGG, CA >> Redwood Forest Foundation Inc (RFFI) is pleased to announce hiring of Alicia Bales as the new Program Director. She will spearhead RFFI’s efforts to facilitate meaningful community involvement in the future of our region’s forests.

Alicia is a well-known voice in Mendocino County, with decades of history as a community radio journalist and local community organizer. Her background fits exceptionally well with RFFI’s mission to acquire, restore and manage depleted forest landscapes through inclusive community engagement to benefit the environment and the wellbeing of the community.

“Alicia has a deep and demonstrated commitment to the things RFFI cares about, the Redwood forest and the people who live here,” said Kathleen Moxon, RFFI’s Interim President/ CEO, “To deeply engage the community takes dedication and consistency, and we feel fortunate to have Alicia coming on board to help us carry out this important facet of our mission.”

RFFI was founded in the late 1990s by a visionary alliance of community members that included local forest workers and environmentalists. Their goal was to create a nonprofit corporation that would acquire cut-over industrial forestlands and manage them restoratively, to revive the forest, support local economic development and reconnect the human communities devastated by a century of extractive logging. In 2007 RFFI purchased the 50,000-acre Usal Redwood Forest, formerly owned and logged by Georgia Pacific Corporation. The Forest is situated north and west from Hwy 1 at Leggett all the way to Piercy in Northern Mendocino County, encompassing the Salmon-bearing watersheds of Usal Creek and Anderson Creek, and several tributaries to the South Fork Eel River, including Standley Creek, Mill Creek, and Wildcat Creek.

Financing the purchase has demanded much of RFFI’s attention since they acquired the property. Now, thanks to innovative funding models and grants for several large-scale restoration and fire mitigation projects, the nonprofit can expand its staff and focus on deepening community engagement in governance and activities relating to the forest— truly meeting the mission of being a community forest.