Audrey on Forestry and Prevention
In Northern California, our forests have the power to sustain or destroy us. After decades of fire suppression, underinvestment, and climate disruption, our forests are in a state of crisis. Instead of providing clean water, wildlife habitat, timber, and recreation, they now fuel the megafires that threaten our homes, pollute our air, and cost lives.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
With science-based forest management, local leadership, and meaningful federal investment, we can turn this crisis into an opportunity for safety, sustainability, and rural economic renewal.
Audrey on Forestry and Prevention
Reform federal policy to empower local experts, tribes, and collaborative groups to co-manage public lands and forest health initiatives.
California’s forests are out of balance. Dense, dry, overstocked stands, often decades overdue for thinning or prescribed fire, have become the fuel source for climate-driven megafires.
The Carr Fire, Camp Fire, Tubbs Fire and many others have made it painfully clear: when we fail to manage our forests, we pay the price in homes lost, lives cut short, water quality degraded, wildlife displaced, and local economies upended.
But we also know what works. Collaborative land stewardship, tribal ecological knowledge, and proactive restoration efforts have already shown success in reducing fire severity and restoring natural ecosystem function.
Healthy forests provide more than just trees. They protect our drinking water, store carbon, offer recreation and cultural value, and support rural livelihoods. When well-managed, forests serve as both an environmental and economic engine.
Programs like Conservation Stewardship Agreements through the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provide financial and technical support to landowners and tribes managing forests for fire resilience, habitat, and carbon storage. These programs should be expanded and simplified to meet the urgent scale of need in the North State.
The Quincy Library Group, a citizen-led collaboration formed in Plumas County, proved that local communities, scientists, timber interests, and environmentalists can come together to manage forests in a way that protects people, wildlife, and jobs. We need to replicate and fund more of these collaborative approaches, with federal support, not federal interference.
In Congress, I will work to:
I’ve lived through fire. During my 2018 campaign, the Carr Fire devastated Shasta County. Our campaign suspended operations to help deliver supplies and support to fire survivors.
Just two days after election night in 2018, the Camp Fire destroyed Paradise and the surrounding Ridge communities and displaced tens of thousands in my home county of Butte. I helped co-found the Camp Fire Long Term Recovery Group and traveled to Washington, D.C. with survivors to advocate for urgent climate and forest policy reforms. We participated in Senator Bernie Sanders’ town hall on climate change and met with lawmakers to demand action.
These experiences shaped my commitment to forest restoration, climate resilience, and equitable recovery. This isn’t just policy for me. It’s personal.
