Oregon Department of Forestry's management plan didn't use best science

Published: Friday, April 29, 2011, 3:57 PM     Updated: Friday, April
29, 2011, 4:45 PM
By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian

An independent review of the Oregon Department of Forestry's
management plans for the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests said the
department consistently failed to use the best available science,
reached unjustified conclusions and measured nearly everything by how
much timber was produced.

Conservation groups called the report by Oregon State University's
Institute for Natural Resources a "scathing" indictment of the
department's plans to increase logging in the state forests. Industry
supporters were critical as well, saying the Board of Forestry
undermined its staff by asking for the review.

"I think your bell has been rung," Tillamook County Commissioner Tim
Josi said during a forestry board meeting Friday in Salem. "This is
going to be used against you like a club."

Some board members also took issue with the report. Jennifer
Phillippi, business manager for a Cave Junction lumber company, said
the institute's work was "misleading and insensitive" to rural
communities hard-hit by reductions in logging and by mill closures.

"I can't line up my experience with what you're saying," she said. "We
might not be timber-dependent anymore, I think we're welfare-
dependent. The communities are literally falling apart."

The institute was asked to review the science the department
considered as it evaluated forest management plans and a strategy for
helping "Species of Concern" such as northern spotted owls, voles,
amphibians, steelhead and salmon.

Mike Cafferata, deputy chief of the department's state forests
division, said his staff analyzed, compared and made fish and wildlife
projections based on management plans that would result in forests
that were 50 percent or 30 percent "complex" -- with older trees,
multi-layered canopies and other characteristics.

"They're saying the best available science is better than the trends
you analyzed," Cafferata said of the institute's report. "I think we
learned a lot."

The department will prepare a response by June, State Forester Doug
Decker said.

Brenda McComb, an OSU forestry professor who led the review, said the
group did not intend to dismiss the work done by the department.

"There are things they could have done better, in our opinion," she
said. "The staff did a good job with the resources and time available.
I hope it's taken in that way."

Board Chairman John Blackwell urged environmentalists and industry
groups to avoid "polemics" in discussing the report.

Blackwell said his intent in asking for the scientific review was to
obtain "social license for the middle ground" in the contentious
forest management debate. The board will filter its future decisions
through the information gained in the report, he said.