Tag Archives: forest

Cultures of collaboration in forest management

Meredith Jacobson is a Master’s student in the Forest, Ecosystems and Society Department of OSU’s College of Forestry who studies collaborative partnerships in forest management. She describes her thesis work here at Oregon State as a qualitative case study on the concept of “Anchor Forests”, an idea developed by the Intertribal Timber Council that would involve creating large regions of forest management and stewardship, collaborating across ownership boundaries. Within this brief statement, there’s a lot to unpack.

Early in her undergraduate experience in forestry at UC Berkeley, Meredith became interested in how to engage communities in managing their natural resources. After working a few seasons in the field, she wanted to find a way to combine her interest in social justice with her love of forests. So she came to OSU to study collaborative forest governance. As she gained exposure to this field under the guidance of her advisors Dr. Reem Hajjar and Dr. Emily Jane Davis, she soon learned that a lot of work needs to be done to make collaboration more effective, equitable, and just. She also found that most models of forest collaboration are not doing a good job engaging with Native communities, the original stewards of the land. 

Backpacking through the Plumas National Forest, one of the first places where Meredith first learned about wildfire-adapted landscapes.

Meredith then learned about the Intertribal Timber Council’s vision for Anchor Forests, which proposes that Tribes are uniquely positioned to be leaders and conveners of cross-boundary forest management. Core to the Anchor Forest concept is a need to generate long-term commitments on the part of many landowners to actively manage land, in order to sustain investments for infrastructure like sawmills while creating healthy and wildfire-resilient landscapes. Early in her time at OSU, Meredith had the opportunity to speak with leaders involved in developing the Anchor Forest concept, who expressed to her that while Anchor Forests have not been fully implemented on the ground, the vision holds a lot of potential. From these conversations, she developed a project intended to document why this idea emerged, what it could be used for in the future, and how we might learn from it.

The Intertribal Timber Council released an Executive Summary of the Anchor Forest Pilot Project in 2016, which studied a group of pilot communities in central and eastern Washington. Around this time, a couple journal articles were published and Evergreen Magazine released a video series about Anchor Forests. Meredith hopes that her work can generate more conversation at OSU and in the field of collaborative forest governance about the potential of this concept and vision.

Diving into this topic, Meredith has found it to be more complicated than meets the eye. There are logistical, institutional, and social barriers to making an idea like this work. Her data collection has included interviewing those involved in developing the Anchor Forest concept, analyzing published documents and reports, and looking at online media coverage of Tribal forest policies and laws that could enable the cross-boundary work needed to make Anchor Forests happen. Through her analysis, she wants to understand what is unique about this concept and what barriers need to be overcome to realize its potential. She’s also looking at what types of narratives or stories are used to portray Tribes as effective leaders and land stewards.

Meredith says that one of the most interesting things she’s learned so far is that among the ten people she’s talked to, there has not been one unified perspective on what makes the Anchor Forest idea unique and what hope it holds for the future. 

“I think that this reflects how this idea takes different shapes and meanings depending on the local context where it would be implemented. With a concept as broad as this, it’s important to remember that every community has its own distinct history, ecology, and economy. And every Tribe is unique in their culture, values, needs, and interests, but non-Native folks tend to overlook that. ”

The property line between federal and private forests in the northern Sierra Nevada highlights differences in post-fire management approaches, and the challenges of working across ownership boundaries.

Perhaps this is why the concept itself is so difficult to define. However, one common theme emerging from land managers across the West: that shifting leadership and power to Tribes could be a critical part of the solution to increasingly urgent challenges like wildfire affecting forests on a landscape scale.

Meredith presents her findings to the Intertribal Timber Council on Tuesday. To hear more about her journey to grad school and how she is navigating her own identity as a non-native person engaging in indigenous partner research, tune in on Sunday, December 1st at 7 PM on KBVR Corvallis 88.7 FM or stream live. 

A bird’s eye view: hindsight and foresight from long term bird surveys

The Hermit Warbler is a songbird that lives its life in two areas of the world. It spends its breeding season (late May-early July) in the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and migrates to Central America for the winter. Due to the long journey from the Central America to the PNW, it is dependent on food resources being available throughout its journey and when it arrives to breed. The environmental conditions across its range are tightly linked to habitat resources, and unfavorable climatic conditions, such as those becoming less frequent due to climate change, can negatively affect bird populations. Changes in bird populations are not always easy to notice, especially with small songbirds that live high in tree canopies. Studying birds for one or a few years may not be enough to signal the change in their well-being.

A Hermit Warbler singing on a lichen-covered branch in the forest canopy. Male Hermit Warblers will defend their territories ferociously against other males during the breeding season. H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, May 2017.

Fortunately, long term data sets are becoming more available thanks to long term study programs. For example, the Willamette National Forest in Oregon is home to H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest (the Andrews). Designated by the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the Andrews forest hosts many forest research projects and has been monitored since 1948. In 1980, it was became one of the National Science Foundation’s Long Term Ecological Research sites ensuring that it will remain a resource for scientists for years to come. Bird surveys at the Andrews began 11 years ago, and researchers at Oregon State University are beginning to draw connections between changing climate and bird communities in relation to the forest’s structure and compositions.

H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, where long-term bird study is launched in 2009 by Drs. Matt Betts and Sarah Frey. The forest sits on the moist foothills of western Cascades in Willamette National Forest.

One of these researchers, Hankyu Kim PhD student in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, is using this data to study the Hermit Warbler and other bird species at the Andrews. Hankyu is interested in how and why bird communities are changing over time. With 11 years of bird observations and extensive temperature data, he is attempting to estimate how population of birds persist in the forests. To begin approximating how current climate effects birds, we need to have an idea about bird communities in the past. Past conditions can help us explore how birds might respond to future climate scenarios. Without the effort of many researchers before him to monitor birds, his investigation would be impossible.

Bird surveys are conducted via point counts. Researchers stand at a point count station for 10 minutes and count all bird species they see and hear. Listen to a hermit warbler and some other background birdsongs recorded at H.J Andrews in June 2017.

Hankyu realized the importance of long-term data after reviewing the 45-years of wintering waterbird surveys collected by the Birdwatching Club at Seoul National University, Korea during his time as an undergrad. The group took annual trips to the major Rivers and Coastal Areas, and in just a couple decades the members of the club had recorded declines and disappearances of some species that were once common and widespread. This finding inspired Hankyu to pursue graduate school to study unnoticed or uncharismatic species that are in danger of decline. Every species plays a critical role in the ecosystem, even if that role has not yet been discovered.

Tune in on Sunday May, 19 at 7 pm to hear more about Hankyu Kim’s research with birds. Not a local listener? Stream the show live or catch up when the podcast episode is released.

Want more about the Hermit Warblers in Oregon? Check out this video of Oregon Field Guide featuring Hankyu and some of his colleagues from Oregon State University.

Hankyu’s episode on Apple Podcasts