Supporters of Oregon's Badlands honored by Public Lands Foundation

Terry Richard

Members of central Oregon's Friends of the Oregon Badlands, along with Prineville Bureau of Land Management employee Gavin Hoban, have been presented the Public Lands Foundation's Landscape Stewardship Certificate of Appreciation and Citation.

The Badlands Wilderness Area was designated this year by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 30. The award was presented Dec. 8 in Portland.

The program recognizes groups or individuals who promote collaboration by a broad range of participants to achieve shared natural resource protection and enhancement goals.

Beyond his BLM work days, Hoban personally patrolled 27 miles of boundaries to check for signs of off-highway vehicle trespass in the Badlands, located 18 miles east of Bend on the north side of U.S. 20. He spent untold hours developing landscape restoration projects that have resulted in road closures, trail and trailhead development, maintenance and signing.

The Friends of the Oregon Badlands contributed more than 1,200 volunteer hours as partners and stewards of these public lands. The organization has served as the "eyes and ears" for BLM by conducting mapping and photography, reporting trespasses and regularly patrolling 50 miles of trails. Members have installed trailhead kiosks and directional signs and have monitored and maintained six trailheads.

The group also completed eight miles of road closures and removed six miles of obsolete fencing hazardous to wildlife.

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Source: http://blog.oregonlive.com/terryrichard/2009/12/supporters_of_oregons_badlands.html

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