Rural & Equitable Partnerships

Bridging diverse perspectives from across the state

OEC Staff Stacey Malstrom & Karen Lewotsky visit a watershed in the Willamette Valley.

We bring people together. It’s OEC’s secret to lasting environmental solutions that keep on working for Oregon. It’s so critical, especially as Oregon grows and changes, that we’ve created new positions to increase our effectiveness and ensure that the solutions OEC advocates reflect diverse perspectives. As we face increasingly complex environmental challenges, we’ll need all the expertise and ingenuity that Oregonians have to offer.

OEC now has a dedicated rural partnerships director: Karen Lewotsky. She has her sight set on bridging the gap between state-level environmental decisions and on-the-ground work.

Karen Lewotsky

For example, she sees landowners and local groups who have figured out the best ways to maintain lands along the river’s edge to keep rivers cold, healthy and strong. Karen wants to make sure that these “best ways” are supported by state policy and shared with others across the state.

There are also communities of color and low-wealth communities routinely pushed to the margins of decisions.

Our team at OEC is committed to ensuring that communities regardless of race, ethnicity or income have a meaningful role in decisions that affect them.

OEC’s motto: “It’s your Oregon. Protect what you love,” serves as a reminder that our job is to raise the voices of Oregonians from all walks of life and across the state. No matter how our state grows, how our environmental challenges shift or our strategies evolve, our core strategy will endure: we bring people together for healthy land, water and air.

This story first appeared in our bi-annual printed newsletter, Summer 2017.

You can read the full Summer 2017 newsletter (PDF) or sign up to receive monthly email updates from OEC here.

Related Posts

Filter by

Post type

Post Page

Category

Featured Rural Partnerships Air Quality Climate Protection Water News Policy Water Conservation OEC News/Updates/Events Transportation Solutions Living Green

Sort by

Title Relevance

Rural Partnerships Initiative

For many Oregonians, rural Oregon is a mostly pretty place they travel through on their way to somewhere else. Portlanders heading southeast to Bend/Redmond for a ski weekend, folks from Eugene heading northwest for the annual Cannon Beach

December 29, 2019, 7:22 pm

klew

9

The Impact of Clean Energy Jobs on Rural Communities

Southern Oregon communities and residents have shown nothing but true grit and resilience in the face of wildfires and the unhealthy smoke that blankets the air during the peak of wildfire seasons, which have gotten longer and more dangerous in recent years. Ashland City Councilor Tonya

December 10, 2019, 7:20 pm

mcadmin

9

Keep investing in rural communities

December 29, 2017, 12:13 am

stacey

9

Building Bridges: Connections Between Communities, Climate, and Equitable Transportation

The Columbia River between Washington and Oregon has been significant for transportation around the region for thousands of years, with people moving along and across the river to meet their needs, make a living, and connect across communities. The I-5 bridge between Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon, is currently at the center of a regional conversation about transportation, connectedness, and community needs. 

August 10, 2021, 8:19 pm

saraw

0

Transportation Pricing for Equitable Mobility

When we talk about traffic congestion, we usually talk about how frustrating it is compared to the way things used to be. We are exasperated that it takes twice as long to get to work as it used to. The truth is, though, that we can’t go back to the way things used to be, because that old approach isn’t working any more, and it won’t work in the future. People will continue to be born in Oregon while many more move to our state, and we all need to get places every day. We need a syste

October 23, 2019, 1:29 am

saraw

0