Katie Pofahl has joined The Nature Conservancyโs Washington chapter as our Eastern Washington Community Relations Manager with the Climate Resilient Forests and Communities team.
Katie will be focused on working with local communities, partners and leaders to build trust and plan for, design, and implement projects that reflect a broad suite of community needs, such as climate resilience, habitat conservation, forest health, recreation, economic development, and health and safety.
She recently graduated with a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment and brings over ten years of applied conservation. She is a Switzer Fellow, a Wyss Scholar for the Conservation of the American West, and she led the Yale Chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration. As part of her studies, Katie worked with The Nature Conservancy's Sierra Nevada program to develop policy approaches that reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire in California while supporting a sustainable forest products industry. She also collaborated with the Rural West Covid Project where she worked to inform public policy across various levels of government to meet the needs of rural West communities struggling with the social and economic impacts of the pandemic.
Before coming to Yale, Katie worked for a land trust in Central California developing innovative community programs that were featured by the Land Trust Alliance and recognized by California State Parks for excellence in collaboration. She also served in public office with the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park and District protecting 1,041 acres of habitat from development, including rare forests and working ranchlands, and securing $1.2 million annually for open space preservation.
Katieโs work is focused on enacting transformative land conservation that will enable communities in the West to respond to urgent threats from drought, fire, urban sprawl and climate change. A key aspect of Katie's approach is to view communities as a solution to critical issues rather than as a problem. Her work increases the pace and scale of land conservation while improving the wellbeing of our communities by using proven approaches that link land conservation to economic vitality, health, justice, and resilience to climate change.
Ask Katie about bike touring - she just rode over 550 miles and 30,000 vertical feet over 15 days in the Southern Rockies! She also loves surfing, snowboarding, and walking slowly in the forest
Banner photo ยฉ Tomas Corsini, volunteer photographer.
TNC Washingtonโs Conservation Forester, Herman Flamenco, shares with us the long-awaited final installment of the How Go Commercial Thin Project!
Here are five Nature Conservancy preserves in Washington that you can visit anytime to immerse yourself in the beauty of nature, while learning about The Nature Conservancyโs conservation efforts.
It might surprise you to learn that getting a real Christmas tree is more sustainable than using a plastic tree for the holidays, but TNC Washington and the Kiwanis Club of Cle Elum are taking sustainable harvest one step further with benefits for conservation and the local community.
In American slang, โO.G.โ stands for original gangster. Itโs used to refer to legends, the best in the game, people deserving of respect and whose legacy will live beyond them. In forestry, thereโs a different kind of โO.G.,โ the old growth forest.
As part of restoring forestlands on Cle Elum Ridge, TNC Washington used the snowy winter conditions as an opportunity to burn and remove leftover debris from tree thinning last fall.
Learn more about how partners from various backgrounds came together to work toward a common goal of making natural resource management and recreation less challenging.
New research by The Nature Conservancy in Washington and Washington Dept. of Natural Resources reveals the importance of trailing edge forests as the โcanaries in the coal mineโ of forest health.
The window for prescribed fire in Washington was brief this year due to an unseasonably warm and dry October. Still, The Nature Conservancy and local partners in Roslyn were able to conduct one burn in the Central Cascades Forest.
Through mastication and prescribed fire, the Central Cascades Forest is transforming from a dense and overgrown forest to a thriving and healthy ecosystem.
The Nature Conservancy is working on a new and creative forest restoration project on Cle Elum Ridge, called the โHow Go Unit,โ within the Central Cascades Forest. This โselective thinningโ project will reduce fire risk, create healthy forests and support recreational access and natural habitat.