Conserving Critical Corridors for Critters and Climate on the Siskiyou Crest
We are delighted to announce that PFT has entered into an agreement with Chinook Forest Partners to buy 1,675 acres of highly diverse forestland along the Siskiyou Crest. Acquiring this property significantly expands the conserved corridor from the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument to the Forest Service late seral reserves in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, which PFT has been building for almost 20 years. We expect to close on the 555-acre first phase of this project in partnership with our friends at Mountcrest Forest LLC by year end. We then have two years to raise the money for PFT to protect the remaining 1,120 acres, which we plan to manage as a demonstration of climate-resilient forestry.
To help us reach this goal, please donate.
In early 2019, PFT learned that the largest remaining forest property in the upper Rogue River basin on Oregon’s Siskiyou Crest, directly adjacent to our Mountcrest Forest easement, was about to be sold by its then industrial owner, Weyerhaeuser. Intensive logging, property subdivision, and development were the likely outcomes of this sale, preventing expansion of our conservation corridor. The Siskiyou Crest is a connecting corridor between the Great Basin and the Pacific Coast, and is globally renowned for its biodiversity. PFT quickly stepped in, forming the multi-partner Mt. Ashland Forest Climate Resilience Project to work with Chinook Forest Partners to secure this important property shortly after Chinook purchased the property from Weyerhaeuser.
The property straddles the Siskiyou Crest just west of Interstate-5, at the headwaters of both the Rogue and Klamath river basins. Conserving this will assure permanent, multi-directional wildlife corridors, sustaining a cross-boundary “super wild-way” already in use by wolves, Pacific fishers, and other wide-ranging creatures.
Mountcrest Forest LLC has generously committed to permanently protecting the first 555 acres by gifting a conservation easement to PFT — setting the stage for restoration of the property’s forests to a more resilient condition. Our focus will then turn to raising the money to complete the acquisition of the final 1,120 acres. We are very grateful to Chinook Forest Partners for their collaboration in helping securing these strategic conservation properties.Donate to help PFT conserve this stunningly beautiful habitat for hundreds of species, including the highly threatened Pacific fisher, grey wolf, and Spotted Owl!
Managing Climate Resilient Forests, the Oregon Way
Oregon is home to some of the most carbon-rich forests in the world, their great temperate rain forests along the Pacific Coast. Yet, forest loss and disturbance from harvest is the single largest source of CO2 emissions in the state. Even as forests are the most expandable, safest carbon sinks, safely sequestering carbon for hundreds and thousands of years, they can also be a source of CO2, emitting some two-thirds of their stored carbon after a typical industrial harvest. But such forest harvest is the source of many jobs and wood products used all over the world – is there a way to reconcile these two great gifts of Oregon’s forests, managing for both climate values and long-term sustainable supplies of timber products?
Jerry Franklin and Laurie Wayburn (PFT Board member and President, respectively) focused on this important issue for a webinar at the Land Trust Alliance’s Annual Rally 2020: Managing and Restoring Forests for Climate Resilience. Outlining the key principles of climate-friendly forest management, the seminar focused in on the practical example of PFT’s van Eck forest project. PFT conserved this 7,200-acre forest in 2002 and has since managed it with the synergistic goals of restoring natural forest functions, while also generating economic return. At that time, the forest was very young (most of the trees were under 20 years old) and planted solely to Douglas fir. While an “industry standard”, such single species, short-rotation forests are far more susceptible to climate change stress and hold far less carbon, perhaps one-tenth of what these forests naturally sequester.
Property goals include restoring more natural stocking of native species—restoring the diverse conifers and hardwoods—a more natural age range of trees and stands, including those well over 200 years old; and more natural complexity to the forest structure, with a multiple story canopy, large dead downed and standing trees, and a complex understory of grasses and shrubs. To learn more, watch the webinar.
Climate Change, Forests and Fires
As fires have become more frequent and intense in the West, especially in California, Oregon and Washington, many have linked these to the increasing impacts of climate change. And, the longer, hotter and drier summers certainly place more stress on our forests, many of which are already stressed from over-crowded, simplified stands of younger trees.
To address this, PFT is encouraging a fresh look at how we respond to fires, moving from a policy and practice of fire suppression in forests to one of fire management in our forests. This will require much more proactive forest management and restoration to more naturally fire resilient—that is, returning more rapidly to healthy conditions—and fire resistant—that is, not being damaged by fire—conditions. Both fire resiliency and resistance entail restoring more natural diversity to forests—the diversity of species, ages and structures that enable a stronger forest which can withstand fire on a regular basis, and even benefit from it. Doing this also enhances the overall climate resilience of the carbon-rich forests that are so essential to mitigating, as well as adapting to, climate change.
This past month, several events highlighted PFT’s work in this area: the 6th episode of One Tree Planted’s “The State of California: The Need for Seed,” hosted by Steve Curwood of the Living on Earth podcast, which focused on integrated natural climate solutions, Harvard University’s first climate symposia series, and a recent press event featuring Paul Mason, PFT’s Vice President for Policy, heard here at minute 13, and also on capradio.
Donate to support PFT’s work on forests, climate and fire management.