Events
SageCon Summit Meeting
September 29 and 30th, 2026
Elks Lodge, Burns, Oregon
A virtual option will also be available.
Day 1: Partnership Meeting
This year, we will look at the work underway in Harney County through local partnerships, then zoom out to hear presentations on sage-grouse populations and rangeland restoration tools and techniques across the biome. The agenda is still in development and we will send an update later this summer as speakers are confirmed.
Day 2: Soil Health Workshop
will feature a Soil Health Workshop, which will offer a mix of short expert talks and hands-on field training. Participants will explore the core components of rangeland soil health, including biotic integrity, soil stability, and hydrologic function, and learn how these processes shape and are shaped by management decisions and disturbances. The morning will introduce key concepts such as nutrient and water cycles, plant–soil interactions, fire and invasive annual grass effects, and principles for improving soil function. The afternoon field stations will bring these ideas to life, giving participants the chance to use simple tools to observe and assess soil properties, including infiltration, stability, and to examine root and microbial communities, to connect soil‑health principles to real‑world management challenges in sagebrush country. Whether you are just curious about soil health or an experienced natural resource professional looking to deepen your understanding, this workshop offers practical, accessible tools for making more informed, soil‑conscious decisions on rangelands.
Download the flyer for more information about the workshop.
Find out more and register for the Summit, the workshop, or both (for free).
Past Events
SageCon Summit Meeting
October 28 and 29th, 2025
Four Rivers Cultural Center, Ontario, Oregon
A virtual option will also be available.
For the 10th annual SageCon Summit, we will spend two days in Ontario, Oregon focusing on sagebrush landscapes in Malheur County that burned in the recent 2024 fire season. In the morning of day 1, we will hear updates from SageCon and learn about the collaborative work of the Malheur County Rangeland Partnership. In the afternoon we will dive into the science of post-fire restoration and look at maps of the area we will visit in the field tour on day 2 through the lens of threat-based strategic conservation. The field tour will take us to a ranch that is managed as a mitigation bank and was partially burned in the Cow Valley fire, where we will explore post-fire treatments and fire recovery.
Andrew Shields
Sage Steppe Native Seed Summit
September 24th and 25th, 2025
Hollinshead Barn, Bend, Oregon
Threat-Based Strategic Conservation to Inform Post-fire Planning on Large Landscapes
Presenters: Katie Wollstein, Dustin Johnson, Chad Boyd and Cameron Duquette from the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, OSU-Extension, USDA-ARS and The Nature Conservancy.
April 15th from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm PST
After landscapes have burned in wildfires, difficult decisions must be made about where to direct recovery efforts and the actions that will promote resistance to annual grasses and, ultimately, restore a functional sagebrush ecosystem. Post-fire planning informed by Threat-Based Strategic Conservation (TBSC) offers a framework for making management decisions and focusing limited resources across large burned areas, or on smaller parcels such as a private landholding within a larger fire perimeter. Focusing on impacted rangelands prone to annual grass invasion, the planning framework extends and makes actionable “Defend the Core, Grow the Core” principles in a post-fire environment where management decisions are both urgent and important. The post-fire planning framework uses 5 categories—anchor, maintain, improve, contain, and monitor—to equip producers and agency and county staff involved in post-fire rehabilitation decisions with a spatial strategy that can be used to inform strategic selection of management actions on an individual ranch or across large, multi-jurisdictional landscapes.
Photo Credit: Sergio Arispe
SageCon Summit 2024
Sept 24th & 25th 2024
Prineville, OR
Mesic prioritization at Trout Creek Ranch: Tools for prioritizing mesic restoration across large landscapes
April 16th from 1:00 – 3:00 pm PST
SageCon hosted webinar highlighting the importance of riparian/mesic work while providing short and informative presentations on selected decision support tools for riparian restoration at multiple scales. The webinar will be centered around a case study at Trout Creek Ranch in Fields, OR where The Nature Conservancy and Oregon Desert Land Trust are combining remote sensing products, field assessments and local knowledge to prioritize restoration and management action across 500,000 acres of rangeland. The presentations will feature multiple presenters with intimate knowledge and experience working with tools that have proven to be highly effective including the Oregon Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDE) Atlas, Climate Engine, and more. This webinar is intended for anyone interested in building awareness and knowledge around managing some of the most diverse and lush natural communities on our rangelands.
2023 SageCon Summit
Moving the needle on sagebrush conservation by working proactively across boundaries
Sept 26th & 27th 2023
Lakeview, OR
Restoring Riparian Habitats
Aug 28th & 29th 2023
Baker City, OR
