Moving at the Speed of Trust to Achieve Collective Outcomes – FbD Lunch & Learn Series

Join us on Thursday, September 5th, from 12pm – 1pm, for the latest installment of our annual “Building Trust in Natural Resource Management” series. This discussion will feature Cindy Talbott Roché, a private landowner along the Colville River, and Adam Cares, Natural Resource Manager for Stevens County and a project that has taken several years to develop collective goals for multi-benefit outcomes in northeastern Washington. Cindy is a farm girl with a PhD, who lived with her family on a farm near Chewelah starting in the mid-1960s from where she went on to earn degrees from Washington State University (BS in Forestry and Range Management and MS in Rangeland Ecology), then a PhD from University of Idaho in Plant Science. Her lifelong interests in botany and ecology have led to a vision for restoring wetland habitats with native plants. Initially, she wanted to apply that vision to her property at the confluence of Chewelah Creek and the Colville River, which is how she met Adam. Now, through a land-swap agreement with her brother with whom she co-owned the Talbott family farm, she has the opportunity to pursue restoration in two locations. Adam has coordinated stakeholder-led efforts to restore floodplains, wetlands, and riparian habitat along the Colville River since 2016, with a focus on agricultural lands in the floodplain. Adam coordinates Stevens County’s FbD and FCAAP grant efforts, which are initial steps toward integrated floodplain management in Stevens County. This talk will feature the development of trust between partners has led to better agricultural production, an opportunity to restore 160 acres of vital wetland, and flood risk reduction for downstream neighbors and the Chewelah community.

As always, there will be time for questions and discussion. If you can’t make this or any of the other webinars in the series, each will be recorded and posted on the FbD website on the Culture & Capacity Action Group page within a couple of days of the event.

While we update the specific details of the Lunch & Learn sessions monthly, the topics are informed by feedback from the Floodplains by Design network of practitioners and partners. If you would like to explore some of the topics and themes that emerged from our 2023 Input Gathering, you can view the themes here.

You can view all the past Lunch & Learn recordings and the associated slidedecks on our Culture & Capacity Action Group page here.