Showing posts with label OSU College of Forestry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OSU College of Forestry. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2021
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Elliott Saga Continues
Elliott Saga Continues
State Treasurer Tobias Read’s 2019 idea to turn the Elliott State Forest over to Oregon State University for a research forest has hit numerous roadblocks, none bigger than OSU deciding that the risks of ownership due to expected legal challenges over any timber harvests are too great. Read is now running for Governor and would like to see his idea go forward.
A Department of State Lands Advisory Committee, made up of stakeholders, OSU and DSL representatives has been overseeing a process that would keep the ESRF in public hands. The Committee is now developing Legislative Concepts for the February 2022 short legislative session. Legislation is needed to create an entity that governs the Elliott State Research Forest, where OSU will conduct the research on the massive 84,000 acre forest.
Still to be determined is where or how the $121 million will come from to decouple the ESRF from its Constitutional tie to the Common School Fund. Also, the Committee decided a new appraisal would be timely. Since timber values have increased dramatically since the Pandemic it’s likely the price tag will increase.
DSL is overseeing the development of an Endangered Species ACT Habitat Conservation Plan for the Elliott that will determine the allowable timber sale quantity. Previous attempts by the Department of Forestry to develop an HCP failed to get Federal Agency buy-in during both Republican and Democratic Administrations. Good luck this time.
The ESRF will need to generate funds for research projects, road maintenance and fire protection. Not to mention maintaining public access to the forest.
Likely next steps include approval of legislative concepts for creating the ESRF and a governing body for this new public entity. Just as important is securing $121 million. Stay tuned.
Controversial forestry experiment will be largest-ever in United States
Monday, December 5, 2011
Another perspective on managing fire-prone forests
Odion and DellaSala (Guest Opinion, Nov 20) shared some opinions about fire and thinning policy in federal forests of Southwest Oregon. Their message to the public was that fire is the natural feature of the Rogue River Valley landscape, and that action to suppress fire, in part by thinning, is contrary to the natural development of vegetation there. They imply that expending resources to suppress fires near houses and forest plantations is acceptable, but that natural forests, in general, benefit from the periodic fires of the region. I question the definition of "benefit" in this context, hence justification of the message.
The Forestry Intensified Research program at Medford facilities of Oregon State University focused a decade of intensive efforts on reforestation of public lands nearby. Their focus was on reforestation or afforestation (including fuel management) on areas that exhibit a repeated-fire tendency. This research was concentrated on potentially productive land where the federal government had abandoned efforts to maintain conifers.
The question of whether fire-promoted shrub/hardwood cover is the "natural" cover is worthy of examination. I refer that question to those, including Dr. Bob Zybach, whose work at Oregon State University reconstructed the use of fire in the livelihood of Native Americans. If those natives used fire to clear land for food crops hundreds and thousands of years ago, does that make it "natural"? What happens if the evergreen brush does not burn?
The FIR program discovered a number of low-impact practices that would restore conifers on the fire-prone landscapes. I have maintained the only FIR studies that continue to this day more than 30 years later. Our findings indicated that controlling manzanita, buckbrush and other fire-prone shrubs and hardwoods is relatively easy. Moreover, selective removal of the shrubs reveals that planted ponderosa pine grows very well on sites the feds had written off! After clearing and planting pines, there still are some ceanothus, manzanita, madrone and poison oak clumps out there, plus many herbs that disappear under dense brush cover within a few years. Let's follow this idea a bit more to get back to thinning as the primary forest practice.
Odion and DellaSalla and I agree on the point that thousands of acres of thinning are not likely to create the condition they prefer. (Note: it is not a scientist's responsibility to choose any particular outcome. They described their preference as what grows after repeated fires).
There are those advocating selective harvest only, including at least one or more from Oregon State University and elsewhere, who promote this approach as the salvation of public opinion in forest management.
The concern here is not biology, it is public protest over clearcutting; they postulate that "people" will allow "some" harvest if it is selective. It is a politically positive approach. So do it? This is a vote for process, not outcome.
Thinning is useful in long-term management. It takes far more than thinning to maintain all objectives. The fire-prone forests under discussion can maintain complete mixes of native species with "even-aged-wthin-stands" management on a landscape scale.
In this system, clearing existing vegetation (clearcutting or site preparation) in patches of 20 to hundreds of acres, yields some timber and prepares for planting local conifers. After 30 or so years, thinning every 10-20 years is continued until the stand is about 80-100 years old and has 30-50 big trees per acre. Then the stand is allowed to grow 50-plus more years in near-old-growth condition to create habitat. Harvesting by clearcutting then begins the cycle again.
This kind of management maintains forest cover in all stages and provides protection for all species, and fuel management. Within each cycle are all the stages with habitats for all species that come and go with time. Each is always present somewhere when the cycles are all in different phases. The research that I continue to lead after more than 50 years suggests that controlled disturbance is a part of keeping the long-term objective in sight.
Many of our mature forests in the area are now living because fires have been suppressed. It is hard to satisfy everyone. Helping people understand long-term consequences of breaking the fire cycle, as we approach in our research, is a part of our job as professors at public institutions.
Part of that story is that clearcutting is a relatively low-impact alternative to wildfire, and manages fuel and habitat within specified boundaries. If we allow random fires to manage our vegetation, fires will run until they threaten houses and forests that are doing their jobs well. Do we fight them only after thousands of acres have been made into snags? At what price? The Biscuit fire sure did a number on a lot of species. And how much old-growth habitat is left there?
Mike Newton is professor emeritus at the Oregon State University College of Forestry.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
GUEST COLUMN: Are we poor enough now?
Baumann
Back in the 1990s a German forester asked me a deep question about our late-successional reserve federal forest land allocation and the lack of management there. He said “You must be a really rich nation to be able to afford such a management plan.”
When I asked him what he meant, he relayed a short story about German forests and plans that were dropped after World War II, since Germany lost the war and had to make reparations to all the other European countries while itself was starving. Germany decided to drop their partial harvest and long-term plans and was basically forced to clear-cut in order to make the reparation payments and purchase potatoes to avoid starvation. He asked me whether the United States would ever be poor enough to change forest management direction.
Considering the current state of affairs in Douglas County and beyond in our nation, maybe we have reached this point after many years of timber slowdown and shutdown. Our schools are hurting and teachers have been laid off; our road managers do not have funds for needed repairs; the library is working hard to stay open and provide services to the main branch and the other 10 municipal branches; we have had to have special elections to adopt a service district to retain our county Oregon State University Extension program; our unique “free” garbage disposal system is cutting hours; the fairgrounds need assistance; unemployment is up; emigration from Douglas county by our youth is accelerating due to the lack of opportunities to stay here; numerous small and large businesses have closed in Roseburg and throughout our rural communities; and forest fires are more active than ever when they start burning due to the annual in-growth in all age classes across the Umpqua National Forest.
Not managing forests in Douglas County and in our national forests is similar to deciding to not harvest corn in Iowa, soybeans in Illinois or providing commercial fishing off of our coastlines. It is similar also to stopping production from our oil fields or fruit and vegetable production from our orchards in Florida and farms in California. In reality, we have chosen to be poorer than we need to be.
We are wasteful, as well as hypocritical, as we now import timber from Canada and beyond to supply our local mills with products. The NIMBY approach (not in my back yard) has affected all communities, businesses, retirees and students in Douglas County. We know we can do better in providing a sustainable and resilient healthy forest and local rural communities.
It seems to this retired federal forester that perhaps the tide may be turning. Certainly reading that Mr. Rasmussen, as the new director of Umpqua Watersheds, is willing to work with industry on management projects can be a pivotal and huge deal. We simply cannot afford the same litigations and stalemates that the last 30+ years have left us. We also know how the characterizations of each other have led to major distrust, which has crippled our abilities to think and act big.
We need bold, far thinking, long-term and watershed-scale management plans for our Umpqua National Forest and we can all have a seat at the planning table together, if we choose to participate. Will we help create local job opportunities? When does the under-performing and dismal state of our county outweigh our individual, organizational and group mistrust and “hurt feelings?” Trust is a gift. Are we as individuals and organizations big enough to trust again? I don't believe that we will truly restore and sustain the various communities of the Umpqua National Forest (human and natural), our forests nor our waters until we heal ourselves first.
Our current social dilemma trumps our resource problems. Washington, D.C., the U.S. Forest Service, our Congressional representatives, and the state of Oregon are all waiting for someone, somewhere to provide the courage and leadership out of this rut. Is our community ready to lead by rejecting our old reasons for conflict? If we really reconciled our differences and pledged to work together to solve our social problems, we would find support and aid from all these entities to help resolve our resource needs.
While not advocating the WWII German solution of simply increasing clear-cutting, we do have the tools and the expertise to manage our lands and protect our resources. We need to again relearn to trust our professional foresters and specialists to provide a balanced plan for our Umpqua National Forest lands that ensures greater resiliency to fire effects and ecological sustainability. We can all have a valuable role in supporting sound management and helping to modify selected treatments where needed.
Are we poor enough yet? Seems an odd question, but I hope so; and maybe our children do too, before another 30 years pass by with lost opportunities.
Alan Baumann of Idleyld Park retired as a forester with the U.S. Forest Service after 31 years. He has worked as a forest consultant and has been involved with the Alder Creek Community Forest, the Douglas County School Forestry Tour, the Glide Nature Trail and Project Learning Tree for many years and currently volunteers at the Wolf Creek Job Corps in its forestry program. He can be reached at alan_baumann@yahoo.com.
When I asked him what he meant, he relayed a short story about German forests and plans that were dropped after World War II, since Germany lost the war and had to make reparations to all the other European countries while itself was starving. Germany decided to drop their partial harvest and long-term plans and was basically forced to clear-cut in order to make the reparation payments and purchase potatoes to avoid starvation. He asked me whether the United States would ever be poor enough to change forest management direction.
Considering the current state of affairs in Douglas County and beyond in our nation, maybe we have reached this point after many years of timber slowdown and shutdown. Our schools are hurting and teachers have been laid off; our road managers do not have funds for needed repairs; the library is working hard to stay open and provide services to the main branch and the other 10 municipal branches; we have had to have special elections to adopt a service district to retain our county Oregon State University Extension program; our unique “free” garbage disposal system is cutting hours; the fairgrounds need assistance; unemployment is up; emigration from Douglas county by our youth is accelerating due to the lack of opportunities to stay here; numerous small and large businesses have closed in Roseburg and throughout our rural communities; and forest fires are more active than ever when they start burning due to the annual in-growth in all age classes across the Umpqua National Forest.
Not managing forests in Douglas County and in our national forests is similar to deciding to not harvest corn in Iowa, soybeans in Illinois or providing commercial fishing off of our coastlines. It is similar also to stopping production from our oil fields or fruit and vegetable production from our orchards in Florida and farms in California. In reality, we have chosen to be poorer than we need to be.
We are wasteful, as well as hypocritical, as we now import timber from Canada and beyond to supply our local mills with products. The NIMBY approach (not in my back yard) has affected all communities, businesses, retirees and students in Douglas County. We know we can do better in providing a sustainable and resilient healthy forest and local rural communities.
It seems to this retired federal forester that perhaps the tide may be turning. Certainly reading that Mr. Rasmussen, as the new director of Umpqua Watersheds, is willing to work with industry on management projects can be a pivotal and huge deal. We simply cannot afford the same litigations and stalemates that the last 30+ years have left us. We also know how the characterizations of each other have led to major distrust, which has crippled our abilities to think and act big.
We need bold, far thinking, long-term and watershed-scale management plans for our Umpqua National Forest and we can all have a seat at the planning table together, if we choose to participate. Will we help create local job opportunities? When does the under-performing and dismal state of our county outweigh our individual, organizational and group mistrust and “hurt feelings?” Trust is a gift. Are we as individuals and organizations big enough to trust again? I don't believe that we will truly restore and sustain the various communities of the Umpqua National Forest (human and natural), our forests nor our waters until we heal ourselves first.
Our current social dilemma trumps our resource problems. Washington, D.C., the U.S. Forest Service, our Congressional representatives, and the state of Oregon are all waiting for someone, somewhere to provide the courage and leadership out of this rut. Is our community ready to lead by rejecting our old reasons for conflict? If we really reconciled our differences and pledged to work together to solve our social problems, we would find support and aid from all these entities to help resolve our resource needs.
While not advocating the WWII German solution of simply increasing clear-cutting, we do have the tools and the expertise to manage our lands and protect our resources. We need to again relearn to trust our professional foresters and specialists to provide a balanced plan for our Umpqua National Forest lands that ensures greater resiliency to fire effects and ecological sustainability. We can all have a valuable role in supporting sound management and helping to modify selected treatments where needed.
Are we poor enough yet? Seems an odd question, but I hope so; and maybe our children do too, before another 30 years pass by with lost opportunities.
Alan Baumann of Idleyld Park retired as a forester with the U.S. Forest Service after 31 years. He has worked as a forest consultant and has been involved with the Alder Creek Community Forest, the Douglas County School Forestry Tour, the Glide Nature Trail and Project Learning Tree for many years and currently volunteers at the Wolf Creek Job Corps in its forestry program. He can be reached at alan_baumann@yahoo.com.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Forestry dean to step down
From Corvallis Gazete Times
|
Posted: Saturday, September 24, 2011 9:00 am
Hal Salwasser, a professor and dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University for the past 12 years, announced Friday that he will step down as dean at the of the 2011-12 academic year in June.
A press release from OSU indicated that Salwasser will remain on the faculty even after he leaves as dean.
In the press release, OSU did not provide a reason for the change.
Salwasser also serves as the executive dean of the Division of Earth Systems Science and the director of the Oregon Forest Research lab.
OSU’s College of Forestry is considered one of the nation’s best.
The search for Salwasser’s successor soon will begin.
Until he leaves his post as as dean, Salwasser will hold the first newly created endowed chair to fund the position of dean, the Cheryl Ramberg-Ford and Allyn C. Ford Deanship of Forestry. (See right).
Under Salwasser’s tenure, the college has revamped degree programs to better meet employer needs, raised more than $39 million during the Campaign for OSU, created five faculty endowments, developed new distance education degree programs and grew enrollment by more than 50 percent. Demand for its forestry graduates is continuing to increase.
The traditional forest products industry has been under enormous pressure in recent years, with mills closing, ownership of forest lands changing and new products emerging. At OSU, programs in forest engineering and management have been joined by new research initiatives in climate, forest ecosystem protection and renewable material science.
“Going forward, there will be continuing changes in the forest industry, as companies strive to maintain markets and competitiveness,” Salwasser said. “The college will have to continually adapt its education, degree and research programs to meet these changing needs. And as state and federal funding for research continues under pressure, we’ll have to forge stronger partnerships with industry.”
Before joining OSU, Salwasser held many positions in the U.S. Forest Service, culminating as regional forester in the northern Rockies and research station director in California in the 1990s. An expert in wildland resource science, he published more than 80 professional papers during a long career, is a member of the board of directors of the World Forestry Center, and is a fellow of the Society of American Foresters.
Copyright 2011 gazettetimes.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.|
Posted: Saturday, September 24, 2011 9:00 am
Hal Salwasser, a professor and dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University for the past 12 years, announced Friday that he will step down as dean at the of the 2011-12 academic year in June.
A press release from OSU indicated that Salwasser will remain on the faculty even after he leaves as dean.
In the press release, OSU did not provide a reason for the change.
Salwasser also serves as the executive dean of the Division of Earth Systems Science and the director of the Oregon Forest Research lab.
OSU’s College of Forestry is considered one of the nation’s best.
The search for Salwasser’s successor soon will begin.
Until he leaves his post as as dean, Salwasser will hold the first newly created endowed chair to fund the position of dean, the Cheryl Ramberg-Ford and Allyn C. Ford Deanship of Forestry. (See right).
Under Salwasser’s tenure, the college has revamped degree programs to better meet employer needs, raised more than $39 million during the Campaign for OSU, created five faculty endowments, developed new distance education degree programs and grew enrollment by more than 50 percent. Demand for its forestry graduates is continuing to increase.
The traditional forest products industry has been under enormous pressure in recent years, with mills closing, ownership of forest lands changing and new products emerging. At OSU, programs in forest engineering and management have been joined by new research initiatives in climate, forest ecosystem protection and renewable material science.
“Going forward, there will be continuing changes in the forest industry, as companies strive to maintain markets and competitiveness,” Salwasser said. “The college will have to continually adapt its education, degree and research programs to meet these changing needs. And as state and federal funding for research continues under pressure, we’ll have to forge stronger partnerships with industry.”
Before joining OSU, Salwasser held many positions in the U.S. Forest Service, culminating as regional forester in the northern Rockies and research station director in California in the 1990s. An expert in wildland resource science, he published more than 80 professional papers during a long career, is a member of the board of directors of the World Forestry Center, and is a fellow of the Society of American Foresters.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Study: Climate change shrinks lodgepole pine range
Including Canada, where it is actually projected to increase in some places, lodgepole pine is expected to be able to survive in only 17 percent of its current range in the western parts of North America.
The research, just published in the journal Climatic Change, was done by scientists from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and the Department of Forest Resource Management at the University of British Columbia. It was based on an analysis of 12,600 sites across a broad geographic range.
Lodgepole pine ecosystems occupy large areas following major fires where extreme cold temperatures, poor soils and heavy, branch-breaking snows make it difficult for other tree species to compete. This includes large parts of higher elevation sites in Oregon, Washington, the Rocky Mountains and western Canada. Yellowstone National Park is dominated by this tree species.
However, warming temperatures, less winter precipitation, earlier loss of snowpack and more summer drought already appear to be affecting the range of lodgepole pine, at the same time increasing the infestations of bark beetles that attack this tree species.
The researchers concluded that some of these forces have been at work since at least 1980, and by around 2020 will have decreased the Pacific Northwest range of lodgepole pine by 8 percent. After that, continued climatic changes are expected to accelerate the species' demise. By 2080, it is projected to be almost absent from Oregon, Washington and Idaho, some of the areas facing the most dramatic changes.
"For skeptics of climate change, it's worth noting that the increase in vulnerability of lodgepole pine we've seen in recent decades is made from comparisons with real climatic data, and is backed up with satellite-observations showing major changes on the ground," said Richard Waring, an OSU distinguished professor emeritus of forest science.
"This is already happening in some places," Waring said. "Bark beetles in lodgepole pine used to be more selective, leaving the younger and healthier trees alone.
"Now their populations and pheromone levels are getting so high they can more easily reach epidemic levels and kill almost all adult trees," he said. "Less frost, combined with less snow favors heavier levels of bark beetle infestation. We're already seeing more insect attack, and we project that it will get worse."
Some species are adapted to lower elevations, experts say, but lodgepole pine is predominately a sub-alpine tree species. Its new foliage can handle frost down to temperatures below freezing, it easily sheds snow that might break the branches of tree species more common at lower elevations, and it can survive in marginal soils.
But it makes these adaptations by growing more slowly, and as the subalpine environment becomes less harsh, lodgepole pine may increasingly be displaced by other species such as Douglas-fir, grand fir and ponderosa pine, which are also more drought-tolerant.
As lodgepole pine continues to decline, one of the few places on the map where it's still projected to survive by 2080 is Yellowstone National Park - a harsh, high-elevation location - and a few other sub-alpine locations.
The species historically has played important ecological and cultural roles. It provided long, straight and lightweight poles often sought for tepees by Native American tribes, was later harvested commercially for poles and fence materials, and offers cover and habitat for big game animals.
Funding for this research was provided by NASA and the Natural Sciences Engineering and Research Council of Canada. A co-author of the study was Nicholas Coops with the University of British Columbia.
Copyright 2011 gazettetimes.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The research, just published in the journal Climatic Change, was done by scientists from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and the Department of Forest Resource Management at the University of British Columbia. It was based on an analysis of 12,600 sites across a broad geographic range.
Lodgepole pine ecosystems occupy large areas following major fires where extreme cold temperatures, poor soils and heavy, branch-breaking snows make it difficult for other tree species to compete. This includes large parts of higher elevation sites in Oregon, Washington, the Rocky Mountains and western Canada. Yellowstone National Park is dominated by this tree species.
However, warming temperatures, less winter precipitation, earlier loss of snowpack and more summer drought already appear to be affecting the range of lodgepole pine, at the same time increasing the infestations of bark beetles that attack this tree species.
The researchers concluded that some of these forces have been at work since at least 1980, and by around 2020 will have decreased the Pacific Northwest range of lodgepole pine by 8 percent. After that, continued climatic changes are expected to accelerate the species' demise. By 2080, it is projected to be almost absent from Oregon, Washington and Idaho, some of the areas facing the most dramatic changes.
"For skeptics of climate change, it's worth noting that the increase in vulnerability of lodgepole pine we've seen in recent decades is made from comparisons with real climatic data, and is backed up with satellite-observations showing major changes on the ground," said Richard Waring, an OSU distinguished professor emeritus of forest science.
"This is already happening in some places," Waring said. "Bark beetles in lodgepole pine used to be more selective, leaving the younger and healthier trees alone.
"Now their populations and pheromone levels are getting so high they can more easily reach epidemic levels and kill almost all adult trees," he said. "Less frost, combined with less snow favors heavier levels of bark beetle infestation. We're already seeing more insect attack, and we project that it will get worse."
Some species are adapted to lower elevations, experts say, but lodgepole pine is predominately a sub-alpine tree species. Its new foliage can handle frost down to temperatures below freezing, it easily sheds snow that might break the branches of tree species more common at lower elevations, and it can survive in marginal soils.
But it makes these adaptations by growing more slowly, and as the subalpine environment becomes less harsh, lodgepole pine may increasingly be displaced by other species such as Douglas-fir, grand fir and ponderosa pine, which are also more drought-tolerant.
As lodgepole pine continues to decline, one of the few places on the map where it's still projected to survive by 2080 is Yellowstone National Park - a harsh, high-elevation location - and a few other sub-alpine locations.
The species historically has played important ecological and cultural roles. It provided long, straight and lightweight poles often sought for tepees by Native American tribes, was later harvested commercially for poles and fence materials, and offers cover and habitat for big game animals.
Funding for this research was provided by NASA and the Natural Sciences Engineering and Research Council of Canada. A co-author of the study was Nicholas Coops with the University of British Columbia.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Oregon forests from a global perspective
By Paul Barnum, OFRI Executive Director
As part of the United Nations-declared “2011 International Year of Forests,” this year’s Starker Lectures will examine “Oregon’s Place in World Forests and Forestry.” Unless you have regular contact with imports or exports, or travel frequently outside the United States, it’s easy to forget that Oregon is vitally connected to the global community.
Why look at Oregon’s forests from a global perspective? Doug Maguire, the Giustina Professor of Forest Management at the OSU College of Forestry, offers these observations:
- The Douglas-fir region is one of the most productive forest regions in the world.
- Unlike other areas in the United States or Europe, a significant amount of primary forest cover still exists in the region.
- Oregon is at the forefront of developing silvicultural systems that conserve native biodiversity and more generally provide a balance of ecosystem services, including timber production, conservation, water quality, carbon sequestration, and enhanced economic and social health.
- Oregon forest products companies compete in a world market, both for buying and selling logs as an industrial raw material, and for marketing manufactured products.
- Oregon has the will and potential to lead a sustainable balance among consumption of wood products, the growing and harvesting of timber, and providing critical levels of ecosystem services.
To this list, I would add that Oregon leads in talent, with the OSU College of Forestry providing a long line of well-educated, qualified forestry professionals and researchers. Plus, the contributions of the U.S. Forest Service Forest Sciences Laboratory and the work of scientists in both the public and private sectors have made us a global leader in advancing scientific forest management.
As newer sectors such as high-tech, clean energy and sportswear have come to the fore, forestry and wood products have had to share the limelight. That’s a good thing, because just as diversity is essential to a forest ecosystem, it’s also necessary for a healthy state economy.
The International Year of Forests is a good time to celebrate the global importance of Oregon forests. Regardless of what sector you hail from, we all can take pride in Oregon forests, enlightened forest management that seeks to conserve and protect the values we love, robust public discussion about how best to accomplish the goal, and the legacy we hope to leave for future generations.
Excerpted from the Oregon Forest Resources Institute's 2011 Winter Outlook.
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