Building a Restoration Economy: Local Workers, Mills, and a Landscape That Gives Back
Healthy forests, watersheds, and communities go hand in hand. Local workers and businesses are essential to 2-3-2 Partnership success.
OVERVIEW
The 2-3-2 Partnership encompasses a rural landscape where communities, forests, and waterways are deeply tied together, and where local people are essential for leading forest and watershed restoration projects. Local mills, contractors, and workers are essential for land health. We work together to promote the restoration economy where more forest and watershed restoration happens in a way that expands rural economic opportunities over time. To do this, we must help our local mills and contractors adapt to utilizing small diameter trees, support job training, hire local people, and help businesses navigate bureaucratic hurdles.
In 2025, 86% of Rio Chama CFLRP funds remained local, up from 64% in 2024.
Youth Conservation Corps
Multiple Youth Conservation Corps work within the 2-3-2 landscape, accomplishing important forest and watershed restoration projects by hiring local early career professionals.
Execution
Forest Stewards Youth Corps (FSYC) operates youth crews throughout the 2-3-2 and northern New Mexico to train and upskill community members while accomplishing high-priority natural resource work. In partnering with Forest Service districts and Pueblos, FSYC crews augment project capacity by working alongside trained professionals. Crew members gain a deep appreciation for their landscape while developing transferable technical and interpersonal skills.
Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (RMYC) engages youth and young adults in meaningful, paid conservation, restoration, and stewardship projects throughout New Mexico. For over 30 years, RMYC has been pairing hands-on project work with professional and personal development opportunities to serve communities in both the present and the future.
RiverSource's Watershed Academy offers 37 paid work-learn internships in a year-round program connecting agency, nonprofit, and local and federal government staff with crews in the summer or individual placements during the school year. Interns learn to read the landscape, implement low-tech process-based restoration practices, and use decision-support tools and digital storytelling.
Forest Stewards Youth Corp
RiverSource’s Watershed Academy
Results
FSYC crews deliver impressive on-the-ground accomplishments, but the larger and longer-lasting impact comes in the form of a diverse, well-trained workforce eager to begin careers in stewardship. Many FSYC alumni go on to careers in wildland firefighting, forestry, or ecological monitoring.
RMYC crews and individual placements have worked on a wide range of projects in the 2-3-2 footprint including floodplain and watershed restoration, fuels reduction, seed tree identification, post-fire restoration work, and surveying and monitoring work.
RiverSource creates leadership opportunities for interns with capstone presentations where interns become the experts. School-year internships range from full-time crew experiences to individual placements of 12 to 14 hours per week.
Contractor WorkshopS
2-3-2 Partners support an adaptive series of contractor workshops connecting local forestry businesses with opportunities from forest restoration projects in the region.
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The workshops bring together contractors, federal and state agency staff, and business development consultants to strengthen local economies while restoring resilient forests. Participants get support navigating state and federal contracting processes, engage directly with agency staff and fellow contractors, and connect to no-cost business development resources. Approximately three workshops are offered each year.
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These workshops are designed to build local forest contractor capacity and expand participation in forest restoration projects. By supporting our locally skilled forest workforce, we are also supporting our long-term, landscape-scale restoration goals.
See the newsletter article about the December 2025 Contractor Workshop: Gathering around the tree(s)
To sign up to receive information about upcoming workshops, visit the home page and subscribe to the 2-3-2 newsletter.
Grant Support
The 2-3-2 supports industry by providing targeted business development assistance to wood processing businesses in the partnership landscape.
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Our industry-led approach works with participating businesses to identify and pursue funding for the utilization strategies, technologies, and market opportunities best aligned with their operational strengths, regional needs, and long-term business goals. Increasing the value and utilization of woody byproducts is essential to expanding the scale and financial sustainability of forest treatments.
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Over the last three years, the 2-3-2 Biomass Utilization Committee has brought in almost $600,000 worth of funding through competitive grant programs. In 2024, Rocky Mountain Timber Products in Southern Colorado was awarded $60,000 to offset hauling costs for removal of hazardous fuels on the Rio Grande National Forest. In 2026, Olguin's Sawmill in Taos, New Mexico was awarded $540,000 to purchase a log peeler and debarker that will support processing of restoration byproducts and salvage wood.