The Lower Rogue Watershed Council works with the Curry Watersheds Partnership (CWP) to leverage the strengths of each partner organization to improve ecological outcomes, inspire conservation and stewardship, and improve the economic and community well-being of Curry County. We are housed together in the beautiful coastal city of Gold Beach. As part of the CWP
we are better able to collectively do work in the Rogue River as well by relying on our partners for staff and diverse skill sets. The CWP includes the Lower Rogue Watershed Council, the South Coast Watershed Council, the Curry Soil & Water Conservation District (CSWCD), and Curry Watersheds Nonprofit.
We got out of the stream in 2017 and helped to restore oak savannahs to the lower Rogue. You may not know that we also have large meadows that are being encroached by conifers. We recently worked with private landowners to restore meadow habitat, and also released several large oak trees (some of which were nearly 400 years old). Several habitat objectives were reached by burning some of the slash and the meadows, piling slash to create wildlife habitat, and leaving several snags on the land as well.
We have been a member of RBP (and its predecessor, Rogue Basin Coordinating Council) for at least 18 years now and have seen many iterations of this group. There has been so much good done through this partnership. No matter what it is called or what it looks like, it seems to continually improve and morph to meet the needs of the partners. I am a part of the Monitoring Group,
the Fish Habitat Group, and the Outreach & Education Group.
The Council is active with restoration, education, data collection, and monitoring within the watershed, especially on private lands. One of our biggest volunteer projects each year is Rogue River Cleanup.