Towards a Politically and Socially Sustainable Forest

How will the Big 3 (Astoria, Forest Grove, Tillamook) and the Little 3 (North Cascades, Philomath, West Oregon) State Forests be managed?  This was question posed to a group of eight forest stakeholders representing diverse interests by Governor Kitzhaber. Their task, in four meetings, to find commonality in a forest management approach that would be financially viable for the Oregon Department of Forestry and be politically and socially sustainable. Governor Kitzhaber placed in the groups hands the ability to shape forest management in our Oregon and he had great optimism that options could be found where common ground existed.

I attended the last two of these meetings with the goal of keeping the group talking and having as much advance notice as possible to forest management changes that our Local’s membership would be asked to implement.

The main thing I have to report is the support the represented stakeholders have in your work with the Department of Forestry.  But the current Forest Management Plan's application of Structure Based Management was faulted for its not providing enough conservation benefit and timber harvest value.  Ed Kamholz, citizen representative, noted however that the “FMP had been relatively trouble free (from litigation) for the past 13½ years”.  That optimistic clear path as a way to increase both conservation and timber harvest, which many in the audience had hoped for, was not provided for the Board of Forestry to follow.  What was clear though, when it comes to the management of Oregon’s State Forests everyone had their game face on.