CASE STUDY - OUR WORK WITH COTTONWOOD Creek RANCH, OR, USA

---

Cottonwood Creek Ranch spans 1,600 acres in Lake County, Oregon.  Recent fires scorched a thousand acres of this precious forest.   The owners, Marc and Uma, saw this as an opportunity to create a new possible future with promise for both nature and the community. 

From the charred landscape emerged an audacious vision for regeneration.  One that extends far beyond the boundaries of their property to create resilient landscapes in this high desert area suffering from recent drought conditions. 

Marc and Uma met ThePivot.Earth team and discovered a shared passion in the power of healing the soil to regenerate the landscape, heal people and their community.  When we regenerate the soil, water quality increases, & increased water holding capacity makes the land resilient to drought and floods. Food from healthy soil has a high nutrient density, healing people and their livestock.

ThePivot’s globally proven holistic facilitation and mapping framework brought clarity and defined the inter-connectedness of all the elements of the project. A multi-year multi-project emerged,  ThePivot.Earth process uncovered $17+ million in potential grants through framing a story grantors are seeking.  

Our unique human-centered systems-thinking approach  nurtures vital relationships, provides targeted support and  insights from experts, and illuminates funding opportunities ensuring enduring success  for Cottonwood Creek Ranch and their community. 

Two streams run through the ranch.  74 beaver dam analogs were built on Cottonwood Creek, (as seen above)  and 30 on Mesman Creek.  The water slows down, filling underground aquifers, increasing retention rates. This new complexity creates more habitat and increases biodiversity. It also reverses dry meadows to wet ones, reducing risk of intense fires and providing more grasslands for grazers.