Bend Don't Break: Lace Thornberg, Central Oregon LandWatch Communications Director

This week on Bend Don’t Break, host Aaron Switzer sits down with Lace Thornberg, Communications Director at Central Oregon LandWatch. Lace shares how her journey through conservation organizations across the West eventually led her to Bend, where she now channels her passion for land use, public lands, and ensuring equitable access to nature. Their conversation explores the importance of protecting Central Oregon’s landscapes in the face of rapid growth, the role of public engagement in shaping land use decisions, and the challenges of balancing development with ecological resilience.

Lace also highlights Central Oregon LandWatch’s Livable Future Forum—a dynamic lecture and community conversation series designed to spark dialogue around what it takes to create a just, sustainable, and ecologically vibrant future. Upcoming forums will feature voices like National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, author Michelle Nijhuis, and National Geographic Explorer Kiliii Yüyan. Learn more and purchase tickets here: 👉 centraloregonlandwatch.org/livable-future-forum

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Ben Don't Break Podcast. We are powered by the Source, Ben's locally owned media company and weekly newspaper. This podcast is our eddy in the rushing waters of local journalism. We are glad that you have taken some of your time to listen to us chat with the people who shape our local community. Support us through our member program at Bensource.com.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

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SPEAKER_03 0:46

I'm Erin Schweitzer, producer of this Ben Don't Break Podcast and publisher of The Source. Thank you for joining us. Today we are with Lace Thornburg. She is passionate about keeping people connected to nature. As Central Oregon Land Watch's communication director, Lace helps people who want to get involved in environmental protection efforts, find opportunities to participate in local land use advocacy, a Midwest transplant who found her way to Bend after a decade plus in Seattle. Lace has worked for conservation groups based in Washington, Oregon, and California and led initiatives for natural history museums. Lace, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Hey, thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

I don't want the word participate anymore in these intros. I barely made that word.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Lace, what where in the Midwest? Where in the Midwest? I was born in the suburbs of Minneapolis in a little town on the banks of the Mississippi River. And then I grew up just south of Winnipeg, Manitoba, on the U.S. side of the border, but like an hour and a half from Winnipeg in a town called Walhalla, North Dakota.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Yeah. I am a I'm um uh prejudice for people from the Midwest. I I think that's understandable. Yeah, the work ethic, the work ethic is real. They're real.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

It took me like 15 years to get rid of that.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

It's a hiring edge that I that people have. I uh I look for it.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, and then you have to be careful because the rest of your coworkers are like, why are you still here?

SPEAKER_03 2:20

That's right. That's right. Uh so Lace, you went and you moved to Seattle. Is that where you got your um environmental passion sparked?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. In college, I liked the outdoors, but it wasn't something I thought I could work in. But when I went to Seattle, one of my first jobs was for a hiking organization. And I was just blown away that you could have a job.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Only in Seattle.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

For an organization that was about hiking.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

And were you the um were you were I don't imagine you were in communications when you started, but um, I was like the office manager slash development coordinator slash slash slash. It was really small at the time. The group is Washington Trails Association. It's quite a bit bigger now. Uh, and I had a writing degree, so I knew I wanted to be in communications. I knew I hated writing. Yeah. So I knew I wanted to like work with writing, but not do it on the puzzle living. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

It sounds very similar to Megan with a lot of slashes and um, yeah. A lot of slashes and prog progress. So uh so how does uh how long were you in the Seattle area?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Uh I think like 2002 to 2017, so about 15 years.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Oh well, okay. Yeah. And then why hike it over the Cascades to these beautiful, drier climbs?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah, why? That's the obvious answer that everyone has the sunshine. Um, I think I mean I love Seattle and I love the ocean and I love that all the western side of the Cascades and the moss and all of that. But it was easy coming from North Dakota. I was like, you call this winter, but in February, there's flowers looming. Right. I was not like dissuaded at first, but like 15 years later, you're like, what is this deep dark feeling I have?

SPEAKER_03 4:13

Sometimes I have this nightmare that I've some I've moved back.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

And I'm like, oh my god, how did I how did I get here?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

No, Bend is lovely. Um I remember when I first decided I wanted to move to Bend, I was on a drive back from Crater Lake National Park, and I took that scenic route, and there was a sign that said Bend 35, and I was like in the middle of like really gorgeous country, and I was like, Are you kidding me? And then like Ben 15, and it's still gorgeous. And so, yeah, then driving into town, I remember I got coffee at Strictly Organic and incidentally ended up working like a block from there later. So that was great. But uh yeah, I was like, okay, we're moving here. Yeah to make this happen. I'm moving here.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Yeah, how did um so what was the catalyst for that for the move?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Uh I started looking for jobs in Bend. Um, and actually it was a very strange like professional coincidence, I think. Um I was working for a publishing company in Seattle that had conservation books about all of the West, all of the American West, from the Arctic to California, but we didn't have a book about Oregon.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

And I was looking for an area that was in need of like the books that we always talked about or ha published were about areas in need of better protection. So I started looking around Oregon, like what are the active conservation campaigns? And I found the Oahee Canyon Lands campaign, and I found this woman, Corey Harlan, who was like seemingly heading it up and started kind of following her and looked at the organization, and that's how I found Oregon Natural Desert Association. And I was planning on pitching them on a book, but then I saw this like job open up and I was like, hmm, this job looks like one I could do. And I just said I wanted to move to Ben. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

That's where you start with you started here with Honda? Yes. And then moved over to Landwatch.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

Oh, that's great. Well, you were in you've been with in with good people since you since you arrived.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Pretty fun people, pretty sharp. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

The uh in the I mean from 2017, I think, even, uh, Landwatch has been changing and morphing um their mission. They've gotten broader, I think is a fair, fair way to say, say it. What are some of the for a lot of people who have been here for a while, Landwatch was outside the urban growth boundary, doing um water and forest preservation and and litigating if they needed to to make that make that happen. But um it's a different organization now. How what how would you characterize the way that Landwatch is growing and moving?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, I would say we're really lucky in Central Oregon to work within such a robust complex of environmental nonprofits and groups, but I think there's still so much work to be done. And so I think Landwatch sees the opportunity to expand into certain areas that are all adjacent. And whenever you work in environmental work, it's all biodiversity and conservation and ecosystems are all interconnected. So all the work always connects. Like our urban growth boundary work connects both on the city and town side and on the rural land side. And it affects water, and it affects, you know, do do we sprawl into our wildlands or not? So I think it's natural that your work kind of evolves and takes different shapes. And yeah, I think just bringing more programs online and doing as much as we can with the community support that we have would be the reason for it.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

You're doing a um, you're doing you you do a lot of work in areas like Sisters and you're working on Lamb Bridge. Maybe talk a little bit about that project.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Oh, the Bendesuttal Lake Wildlife Passage Initiative. Yeah, very exciting project. Uh, I don't know if you know this, but Highway 20 is the most dangerous stretch of road in the state for wildlife vehicle collisions.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

Did not know that, right? That's almost one a day.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, exactly, or more. And uh so you maybe know too, like how successful the Highway 97 project has been at reducing animal collisions.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Well, I know it exists, I don't know how successful it is. I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

I I crashed my car on that road in before those were built. Right. I know there were a lot of deer down there before. Um, I just saw a herd of elk run across 97 the other day. I don't know why they weren't using the crossing.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

I would not want to hit an elk. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

No. So we're working on uh kind of you know replicating crossings or you know, bringing more crossings to that area of Highway 20 between sisters and like the Suttle Lake Resort. We also, as a state, Oregon has far fewer wildlife crossings than the rest of our western counterparts. So we have a lot of catch-up to do.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

I was just on a road trip coming back from the Olympic Peninsula and ample crossings there and um pretty crazy ones where they went rather than under the road, they're you know, going over the road with these they did these large bridges and pretty steep and but short. They look cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

You know, one thing that a lot of people think, and it's it's obvious that the reason you should build wildlife crossings is so that we don't hit the animals. And that's the benefit to us. We are not gonna be in a car crash. But it's also very important for genetic diversity. Yeah, we've got all these isolated populations of animals that aren't able to move and migrate to you know find different mates, and so that's an important reason. And then also just for connecting their like summer and winter breeding grounds.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

It's almost like when the highway system was built, they weren't thinking about Yeah, they it seems like they bifurc they bifurcated the dating scene for the animals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

And their summer and their winter homes.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

Well, and they like to run, so I gotta imagine they don't want to be hemmed in on and I've seen the places they've been, they were kept out of in La Pine, and they definitely got the wrong side of the road in some of the situations. That's true. Um, you know, you're you're uh I think the thing that's most surprising to me, considering how long I've watched Land Watch is the work that you guys do in the central district, which is an you know an urban kind of work with the city, and you guys have been instrumental in working on and helping get the bridge and um helping revitalize that area. What um what compels you to want to work in in that area, that realm. Seems icky. Seems icky.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

I don't think so. I think it's really fun.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

I mean, if you're coming from working in sisters and wildlife, and someone says, you know, we thought you might work a little bit better down by the bottle drop on 2nd Street, uh, you know, I guess it depends on the bent of the person, but for me, I would it's not as much about grass and butterflies and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

But I think there's, you know, there's obviously a strong environmental connection to it because as we can fill in and grow upward as opposed to growing outward, we protect all of those natural spaces. And then if you think too about the connectivity work for cities, if you're keeping people closer to schools, shops, businesses, entertainment, all the things that they want to do, they're not driving as much. So that's really key for climate-friendly approach to living and building too.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

See, that's the long-term perspective working in that environment as opposed to I imagine you get to go to sisters and play with the butterflies and the wish. That was I want to be on that side of the office.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I was that's fair, that's fair.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

But how do you feel? Um, I mean, you've gotten your work with the Benn Central District. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you've been very successful working with the city. It seems like it's a good been a good partnership with um the partners there. Why do you feel like you've had that kind of success inside the the zone, the city?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I think I could really attribute that. I mean, we've had great people in that role. The person in that role currently is Corey Harlan, and I think she's just such a straight sheeter. She's talking to everybody face to face. You know, she does her homework, gets the data crunched, looks at the numbers, looks, and then she knows like what's politically viable and what's important. She talks to everybody to kind of hear their concerns and see what their questions are. And so I think she can really bring forward reasonable ideas. And I think that the Land Watcher approach tries to be as reasonable and accommodating and thoughtful as we can be in any situation. So I think I would attribute it to a lot of coffee.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yeah, I can imagine. And they're uh they're a coffee-prone crowd as opposed to the butterflies and um what are some of the other projects that you guys are currently engaged in?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Oh gosh, so many projects. We're working on water efficiency standards and trying to make sure that water in our region goes where it needs to go and is applied uh in the most beneficial and useful way. Uh we have a lot of work on our hands on the public lands side with lots of directives coming down from the federal government that we do not feel are in the best interest of Central Oregon's forests.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

And it's safe to say the environment the environment is shifted with regard to um public lands.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Shifted would be the gentlest or thing is, yeah, yeah, for sure. Right. Um, like right now we're um soliciting comments on the roadless rural roadback that's been proposed. So hopefully we get a bunch of central Oregonians to speak up for the roadless areas in our area, which there are quite a lot of, like almost 200,000 acres in central Oregon, would be subject to the potential for more roads. Yeah. I don't know if you've driven in the backcountry before. There's plenty of roads already.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Too many. Too many. There's they've been non-stop and uh and they don't go away here. You know, it's one thing if you're over in the valley and stuff can grow back. But yeah, exactly. You go here, you would you can see, oh, this is a 1960s road, and it looks like it was made yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah, we don't have the money to maintain that anyway. So yeah, so we don't need any more of those.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

The environment at the federal level, I mean, things are pretty litigious, and I am I can't imagine that that isn't the future for a lot of these things that the federal government has come into the states with. And you guys have always played a uh pretty key role in advocating and fighting for what you and your supporters believe in. Do you s have you guys girded yourself for that kind of future?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, I think we're ready for the possibility of what lawsuits we might join or initiate. If they would have to be really relevant to Central Oregon. But yeah, I think that's that's out there for sure. And we have more legal capacity now than we used to. So yeah, I would say yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

The um, and on top of all of this, you also are getting into the event business. So you're launching a new Livable Future Forum. How many speak a little bit to that? How many of these forums are we gonna see? What's the what do you envision for the forum?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, we've hosted events in the past under a number of different names and types. Last year, 2024, we hosted our first Livable Future Forum, but we ran it as a kind of a small pilot. We uh rented open space open space event studios, which was a great venue, hosted three events there, talked about local issues, sold out all of those. So there was clearly some hunger to kind of have that kind of event. And we did it in like October, November. I thought, oh no, it's gonna be too dark. Are people even gonna like come out at night? But they did. Um, yeah, you always worry about that. But uh this year we we wanted to expand it a little bit, so we have three events again, but we are bringing in speakers not just from our local area like last year, but instead a little bit more regional and national focus. Yeah, yeah, we've got the tower booked and we have OSU Cascades at Ray Hall, and then we're back at open space for one of the events as well.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

So yeah, I love open space, but the um capacity can be limited.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

So especially when you're bringing people from out of area, there's just such a better demand and yeah, but it's a fun, really like intimate space too. So that would be nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Who are um some of the people that you're bringing?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

I'll just should I just walk you through them all?

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Yeah, love it.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I'll start at the beginning. Okay, our first event is on October 30th, and that is with Chuck Sam's, and he is, I guess, best known as the first indigenous National Park Service director. He was the just former um director under Biden. And he is Cayuse in Walla Walla. He lives in Pendleton, has he is an amazing person, has a background that you think, how are you, how did you live all these lives? And like, you're not that old. So I don't know, like he must have started when he was four, yeah, doing all these cool jobs and uh taking on these roles. So he's gonna talk about the rights of nature and kind of that legal theory that uh ecosystems and species and bodies of water actually should have inherent rights, kind of like our fundamental human rights, uh, among many other things.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

It's a great, it's a great, I mean, I've you know, I'm I'm a vegetarian, so I followed the similar thing with animal rights. It is a long time for people to wrap their heads around the idea that something other than a human has rights. And um I've recently seen it, and I'm I'm definitely diving down a hole here away from your livability form, but you know, with octopus, they started talking about, I don't know if you saw this, but they started talking about octopus farming. And for whatever reason, people could get their heads around the idea that that was wrong and that they're smart enough that you you don't pen them uh and process them. And so they started, uh they had some success overseas with um pushing forward the idea that the octopus has has rights via their intelligence. What you're proposing in this forum is fascinating, but man, that's a that's a leap for people.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

That's okay. That's what we're here to do.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Leap. Sounds like a compelling presentation.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Take some imaginative leaps. Yeah. Uh I'll segue to our second speaker with with octopus. Um, have you listened to Remarkably Bright Creatures Yet? It's very fun. It's called Octopus. It's kind of a nice light story. In any case, our second event will be on November 13th. And the presenter there is a woman named Michelle Nyehouse. She is a high country news editor, and she's also written for the New York Review of Books in the Atlantic. Um, I think people would know her work. They've seen it in National Geographic, many different outlets. But she's gonna be walking us through 20 or so pieces of environmental literature. Um, so we'll talk about the kinds of books that shift people's mindsets and shift their way of thinking and make them be more environmentally inclined. So I will turn it to you then. Um would you recommend a book to that all Central Oregons, Oregonians should no, no, I don't want to, I'm not going out there. We will we will ask people we'll ask people with more notice than yeah, tell them to bring the book, swap the book, you have a book swap. That could be fun.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Uh roundabout books will be there to sell books. Um, and we will have some ex ideas of uh like sharing ideas for books, but I like this idea of just bringing the book. That's a great idea. Bring it. We're gonna do that. You read it? Give it away.

unknown 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

We've long been a republisher of iCountry News, so I I don't know if we've um republished her work, but uh especially when we were first starting out, um, they were integral in helping the source.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Oh, cool. Yeah, great. Yeah, that's very cool.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Yeah, they uh they used to run, I really they used to run a lot of uh pretty controversial uh opposite side of the perspective. You know, they ran an article that was pro-wolf at a time. I mean uh um anti-Wolf, you know, like why you want to call Wolfords at a time when people were super uh working to get them preserved and sparked so much. I can still remember all the letters and conversation I got. And I was like, well, you want to you want to know both sides, so I'm sure she'll be a great speaker.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah, I think that's gonna be a great talk. And then so that's November 13th, that's at Open Space, and then our final talk talks two, we'll have two on the same day. December 4th, we have Keely Yuyan, who is a National Geographic explorer, and his presentation is going to be called Guardians of Life. And it's about his work going all around the world collecting stories and images from indigenous communities that are having success preserving biodiversity and working for climate resilience.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

I'm so glad you said success.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

I thought you were gonna say that are no longer going to be, you know, speaking or So many of those things from National Geographic in particular because they've been recording all that stuff. But that's no, that's very this is going to be an increase.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

We can do a lot.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Um and that's a series of four.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Uh so it'll be, yeah, I guess it's four events total, three different events. And then there's uh the on that December 4th, it's a 3 p.m. matinee and 7 p.m. evening. But it'll be the same time.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

It's two.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

It's two. It's two events. It's one, it's also two. Um, but we wanted to do two so that people can come during the daytime if they want to take the bus or if they don't want to drive at night or whatever, then we'll and then that way we can reach that many more people. And we're also gonna have that one be a very community focused uh event, the 3 p.m. talk. So if you listeners uh work for or are part of any kind of community organization that would have liked to apply for some free tickets to that event, we will be giving away a bunch of those.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Oh, yeah. That's great. Yeah. So we could do a giveaway for you. Yeah, bring some awareness of the program.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

Uh well, we are at the end of our our time together.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Okay. It flies. That that went very quickly.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

What are you so I I imagine you are already imagining success with this series and yeah, you're planning for another one in the spring?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Uh, we will probably do it in the fall again.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

In the spring, we're too busy with the legislative session. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

Well, you never know. You form a little event department and then they're off and running on their own. I speak from experience. That's right. And you just start booking them. Yeah. Uh well, thank you for uh Elise for being here with us.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

So if people want to get tickets, where can they where can they go?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Uh you should search the internet for Livable Future Forum, uh, Central Oregon Land Watch Livable Future Forum. It's also going to be in your event calendar in this workshop. Go to the source. Go to the source. We will help you.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

We will help drive drive the tickets. So great. Well, this has been the Bend Don't Break podcast. If you like what you heard, go to bendsource.com and become a source member and help us promote and helps these great forums succeed, like the Livable Future Forum. And uh we look forward to hearing from you again. Thank you. You've been listening to the Ben Don't Break podcast, powered by the Source Weekly.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

To read, hear, and see more of what we do, go to Bensource.com.