Background
On October 21, 2025, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek issued
Executive Order No. 25-26 (EO), with the goal of increasing coordination among state agencies and with federally recognized sovereign Tribes, landowners, communities, and businesses to implement actions to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of a changing climate. Section I of the EO, Foster Resilient Lands, Waters, and Communities,
directs the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB) and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) to make use of the best available science, existing plans, and strategies to:
- Define key resilience attributes for land and waters;
- Support focused actions that promote restoration, enhancement, or reconnection of lands and waters, delivering multiple benefits that are likely to persist under future climate conditions; and
- Determine baseline conditions against which progress will be measured.
Definitions
As stated in EO 25-26, “The Oregon State Legislature established a definition of climate resilience in House Bill 3409 (2023) as ‘the capability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to and recover from significant climate-related threats while minimizing damage to social wellbeing, the economy and ecosystem functions.’”
Outcome-level characteristics of lands and waters, describing the ecological elements that comprise climate resilience (i.e., habitat connectivity, cold water refugia, flood mitigation). These attributes can be connected to indicators or metrics (i.e., for ‘habitat connectivity’ the indicator could be “acres of conserved land in connected corridors,” or for ‘flood resilience’ an indicator could be “acres of floodplain restoration”).
Process to Define Resilience Attributes for Oregon Land and Water
From February through May 2026, OWEB and ODFW, with facilitation support from Oregon Consensus, will design and facilitate an internal and external engagement process to help define the key resilience attributes foundational to the implementation of Governor Kotek’s EO 25-26. This process includes:
- A literature review of existing research and similar frameworks in Oregon, other states, and internationally.
- A three-day collaborative design workshop from March 10-12, in Salem, Oregon, including:
- Collaboration with content experts experienced in defining resilience attributes from diverse scientific perspectives and applying those attributes to land and water management.
- Engagement with interested parties to understand the vision and values of partners.
- Identification of draft attributes.
- Reviewing and testing the draft attributes with agency staff who will be responsible for implementation and tracking.
- The workshop will be livestreamed for the public, agency staff, and interested parties to engage with the process. There will be an opportunity for the public to share insights on the first and last days of the workshop.
- After the March workshop, OWEB and ODFW will review and refine the attributes together with the other named agencies, federally recognized sovereign Tribes, and other partners. The goal is to have Version 1.0 of the attributes drafted by May 2026, knowing that this will continue to be an iterative process.
Participation
The design workshop will be livestreamed with the opportunity to provide comments on days 1 and 3. A link to the workshop and information on how to submit feedback will be provided on this page in early March.
Contact
If you would like to learn more, please contact:
Sarah Reif, ODFW Habitat Division Administrator, 503-991-3587, or
Alexa Schmidt, OWEB Water and Climate Coordinator, 971-718-4904.
Thank you for your interest in climate resilience in Oregon and for contributing your perspective to the development of resilience attributes.