Conversations on the Forest
From Eugene Neighbors
Conversations on the Forest is a program of collaborative learning discussions on the forests of Lane County and the Pacific Northwest, presented in a fireside chat and response format.
This page is used simultaneously as public information, and as a working page for program development by the core team.
Contents |
[edit] Series Announcement
Conversations on the Forest
A series of fireside chats delving deeply into facts and futures of the forests of Lane County and the Pacific Northwest.
The forest is central to our regional identity, ecology, and economy. Competing public and private interests have driven growth, decline, and political division for decades. In a series of five discussions, Lane County Commissioner Rob Handy, public interest forester Roy Keene, and ArchitectureWeek editor-in-chief Kevin Matthews will explore the past, present, and future of our forests with a depth and openness rarely seen.
Who owns Lane County’s forests, and how have they changed over time? How does forest management, on both public and private land, benefit and impact Lane County residents? Can we sustain the forest, and all its many benefits?
- First Mondays
- 6:00-7:30pm
- February 6, March 5, April 2, May 7, June 4
- Cozmic, 199 W. 8th Ave. in Eugene
More information: http://www.conversationsontheforest.org
Contact: Rob Handy rob@robhandy.com
[edit] Series Flyer
Help spread the word about these public discussions by printing this flyer on recycled paper and posting it appropriately!
Flyer for the Conversations on the Forest series (PDF)
[edit] Special Thanks
- Special thanks to Samantha Chirillo for research and logistical support for these conversations.
- Special thanks to Cozmic for hosting this event series.
- Special thanks for event recording and broadcasts aired on Community Television of Lane County
[edit] Program Topics
Please Note: This program is continuously under construction, as a collective evolutionary project.
[edit] Forest Facts
Audio recording of the first session is at this link...
Handout for the first session is at this link:
- What were the forests of Lane County at key times in the past?
- What are they today?
- History of harvests, public and private. (map, acreages over time)
- Pattern of ownership, public and private. (map, current acreages)
[edit] Forest Economics
Audio recording of the second session is at this link...
Handout for the second session is at this link:
- Trees, Trucks, and Taxes - Where does the money come from, and where does it go?
- How much timber is being exported, and what are the economic implications?
- How much public money is currently being spent in the forests? On what?
- Forest management practices and economic implications
[edit] Public Goods and Ecology
Audio recording of the third session is at this link...
Handout for the third session is at this link:
- Public goods in public and private forests
- Water quality, erosion prevention
- Carbon flows
- Biodiversity
- Oregon Forest Practices Act
- Forest certification systems
[edit] Rural Communities
Audio recording of the fourth session is coming from a new source, and will be posted as soon as it is available.
Our primary handout for the fourth session is the BLM press release on scoping meetings for the new western Oregon forest planning process:
For graphics shown during the conversation, please see the session maps and session references.
- Rural communities
- Jobs, mechanization, and ratios
- Timber and non-timber economies
- Growth, decline, or... prosperity?
[edit] Forest Futures
- Are win-win-win solutions possible?
- What would they look like?
- A plan for the forests, rural communities, and the future
- Next steps for the forests
- Next steps for rural communities
[edit] Program Materials
- Under Construction!
[edit] Discussion Area
The Neighbors and Nature Forum at DesignCommunity is open and welcoming for discussion related to these Conversations.
Simple registration is required for posting comments and documents. Posting approval is immediate when done using a Facebook account as validation, but Facebook is not required.
[edit] What is Sustainable Forestry?
[edit] Primary References
[edit] Maps
- Lane County Atlas Home Page
- Lane County Atlas - Land Ownership
- Map of harvest history/forest age class
- NOAA River Gauges and Basins
- US Forest Service - Willamette National Forest
- US Bureau of Land Management - Eugene District
- Wilderness Society
[edit] Composite Maps of the Walden/Defazio O&C Forest Privatization Proposal
To view these maps, click on the link to load a map in your browser, then zoom in and scroll around to see detail.
- BLM Forest Areas w/o Critical Habitat - small
- BLM Forest Areas w/o Critical Habitat - medium
- BLM Forest Areas w/o Critical Habitat - large
- BLM Forest Areas with Critical Habitat - small
- BLM Forest Areas with Critical Habitat - medium
- BLM Forest Areas with Critical Habitat - large
[edit] Charts
[edit] Information
[edit] Topical Opinion Pieces
- "Clear-cutting public lands not the answer", by Shawn Donnille and Julie Bailey, Eugene Register-Guard, 2012.0130.
- "Forest Service learns, adapts timber practices," by Meg Mitchell, Willamette National Forest Supervisor, Eugene Register-Guard, 2012.0122.
- "The timber racket," by Jeffery Kent, Eugene Register-Guard, 2012.0101.
- "Managing Lane Forests," Roy Keene (video), 2011.1103
- "Timber payments: County can’t cut its way to prosperity," by Pete Sorenson, Eugene Register-Guard, 2011.1011.
- "Forest ‘fix’ rests with corporate owners, not the BLM," by Roy Keene, Eugene Register-Guard, 2011.1010.
- "Want to create timber jobs? Stop the export of raw logs," by Roy Keene, Eugene Register-Guard, 2011.0608.
- "‘Herbicides,’ ‘pesticides’ convenient covers for ‘poison’," by Roy Keene, Eugene Register-Guard, 2011.0118.
- "Wyden’s act fills pockets, not forests," by Roy Keene, Eugene Register-Guard, 2010.0617.
[edit] Topical Reporting
- Clearcut Chemicals - Excellent Living on Earth segment by Ingrid Lobet, on some of the impacts to rural residents from the use of pesticides by timber companies, 2012.0504. Transcript and sound file.
- "Kitzhaber Asked to Reject Attempts to Privatize Public Lands for Public Schools," Salem-News.com, 2012.0213.
- "2010 Carbon Dioxide Output Shows Biggest Jump Ever," by Justin Gillis, New York Times, 2011.1204.
- "The hotspot for West Coast timber: China," by Cassandra Profita, OPB Ecotrope, 2011.0901.
- "Large-scale logging won't control wildfires," Roy Keene and Tim Hermach , The Aspen Times, 2011.0626.
- "North American Wood," by Brian Libby, ArchitectureWeek No. 466, 2010.0310.
- "Maya Lin - Unchopping a Tree," by Kevin Matthews, ArchitectureWeek No. 456, 2009.1216.
- "High Tension over Big Timber," by Christine MacDonald, ArchitectureWeek No. 449, 2009.1021.
- "FSC Versus SFI," by Christine MacDonald, ArchitectureWeek No. 439, 2009.0812.
- "Solid Green Practice," by Brian Libby, ArchitectureWeek No. 426, 2009.0506.
- "Green or Greenwashed?" Christine MacDonald, ArchitectureWeek No. 424, 2009.0422
- "Climate Action Now," by Kevin Matthews, ArchitectureWeek No. 378, 2008.0430.
- "House Recycling," by Bob Falk and Brad Guy, ArchitectureWeek No. 336, 2007.0530.
- "Restoring the Giant Forest," by Kim A. O'Connell, ArchitectureWeek No. 104, 2002.0626.
- "Rewards of Unbuilding," by Michael Cockram, ArchitectureWeek No. 100, 2002.0529.
- "New Directions in Wood," by Naomi Stungo, ArchitectureWeek No. 79, 2001.1219.
[edit] Research Reporting
- Historical Look at Oregon’s Wood Products Industry - by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. Note graph of county payments on p6.
- "Mammoth Trees, Champs of the Ecosystem," New York Times, 2012.0505. "Big trees (those with a diameter greater than three feet at chest height) account for only 1 percent of trees but store half of the area’s biomass."
- "Community of Trees - How Trees Communicate with One Another," video of work by UBC professor Suzanne Simard posted at Eco Preservation Society
- "Forest biofuel may actually increase carbon dioxide emissions, West Coast study suggests," by Robin Rowland, Northwest Coast Energy News, 2011.1023.
- Study: Saving owls and salmon also stores carbon," Associated Press at The Seattle Times, 2011.0726.
- "A synthesis of current knowledge on forests and carbon storage in the United States," by Duncan C. McKinley et al., Ecological Applications, 21(6), 2011, pp. 1902–1924. (comprehensive for concepts but includes some obsolete conventional wisdom, potentially contradicted by better and more recent research)
- "Public and Private Forest Ownership in the Context of Carbon Sequestration and Bioenergy Feedstock Production—a Briefing Paper on Existing Research and Research Needs," by Eric M. White and Ralph J. Alig, March, 2010.
- "Wood Products and Carbon Storage: Can Increased Production Help Solve the Climate Crisis?," by Ann Ingerson, The Wilderness Society, April, 2009.
[edit] Primary Research
- "Regional carbon dioxide implications of forest bioenergy production," Tara W. Hudiburg, Beverly E. Law, Christian Wirth & Sebastiaan Luyssaert, Nature Climate Change 1, 419–423 (2011), published online 23 October 2011. (subscription required). "Here, we use forest inventory data to show that fire prevention measures and large-scale bioenergy harvest in US West Coast forests lead to 2–14% (46–405 Tg C) higher emissions compared with current management practices over the next 20 years. We studied 80 forest types in 19 ecoregions, and found that the current carbon sink in 16 of these ecoregions is sufficiently strong that it cannot be matched or exceeded through substitution of fossil fuels by forest bioenergy."
- "Carbon dynamics of Oregon and Northern California forests and potential land-based carbon storage," by Tara W. Hudiburg, Beverly E. Law, et al., Ecological Applications, 19(1), 2009, pp. 163–180.
