Ecosystem Workforce—Mobile and Local

PROJECT AREAS:

Socioeconomic Monitoring and Assessment

Environmental Justice

Ecosystem Workforce—
Mobile and Local

Traditional Ecological Knowledge

RECENT PROJECTS:

Community-based Projects

Staff Research

How We Select Projects

The Pacific West Center and its partners work together to identify and build capacity in underserved, disenfranchised, and often invisible forest worker communities to address issues that affect their lives and livelihood.

The current ecosystem workforce reflects ethnically diverse communities who harvest non-timber forest products and work in reforestation and other forest-related activities. This includes brush harvesters, tree planters, thinning and restoration workers, and wild mushroom harvesters. Mobile forest workers and harvesters face many challenges, including:

• Language barriers
• Fear of deportation and abuses of undocumented workers
• Depressed wages and unsafe working conditions
• Lack of access to basic information and healthcare services
• Inconsistent legal interpretation and protection of worker rights
• Lack of worker education on permit rules, regulations, and worker rights
• Community isolation and lack of civic participation in decisions that affect their livelihoods

The Pacific West Center and its partners work with the current and mobile ecosystem workforce through community leadership development, participatory needs assessment, project development, multi-party monitoring, and an upcoming workforce assessment.

In Focus: the Latino Forest Workers Leadership Group

The Pacific West Center supports the work of community-based partner, El Centro Internacionl para el Desarollo Rural Sustentable (CIDERS), to increase Latino forest worker communities presence and participation in the community-based forestry dialogue.

Through meaningful partnership, formative leadership development, tools, and capacity building, the Latino Forest Workers Leadership Group aims to create better opportunities for sustainable development among Latino forest worker communities. This requires understanding the systemic causes and effects of forced immigration on forest worker communities.

The Latino Forest Workers Leadership Group works to:

• Build capacity locally and regionally so Latino forest worker communities can identify their own needs, assets, and solutions
• Assist emerging leaders to design, develop, and implement community-based projects and initiatives
• Develop formative and participatory processes for leadership group members to more effectively work with scientists and others, as well as to evaluate progress toward goals themselves