The recession of the early 1980s made community leaders and resource managers in the Oregon Coast Range think about the importance of forest-based resources to the local economies. In 1985, the College of Forestry held a series of meetings to identify the issues that concerned local citizens. Based on these and problem analysis workshops in 1986 to set priorities, Carl Stoltenburg (then FRL Director) and Bob Ethington (then director of the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station), with an advisory council, decided research should focus on riparian zone management and regeneration-related practices.

The Coastal Oregon Productivity Enhancement (COPE) Program then started as a cooperative research and education program in 1987. Its broadly stated aim was to increase the benefits derived from the forest and stream resources of the Oregon Coast Range (from I-5 to the Pacific and from the California border to the Washington border). Resources there were abundant but employment tended to be only seasonal, family incomes were low, young people migrated from the area at a high rate, and balancing different resource uses caused conflict. Particular problems included declining anadromous fish populations, concern for wildlife and environmental quality, and worry over future timber supplies as the land base was lost; trade-offs among these values were poorly defined. Therefore research under the COPE Program was intended to enhance the economic and social benefits derived from forest and stream resources through a better understanding of Coast Range ecosystems and how to manage them.

The program, which was originally proposed by Dean George Brown, has been funded by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service. It is coordinated by the College of Forestry and the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station and conducted by those organizations and the US Geological Survey Biological Resources Division's Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center in Corvallis. Steve Hobbs (Forest Science) has been program director since 1987.

Part of the appeal of this cooperative to so many organizations has been the fact that it involves both fundamental and adaptive research components. The fundamental component is responsible for basic research and the development of new information; the adaptive component was included to improve the communication of research results to cooperators and to conduct adaptive or applied research. It makes information available promptly, adapts existing research-based information to local conditions, and extends knowledge to the public. Furthermore, the adaptive research has been conducted from the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, so researchers were readily accessible to local individuals and agencies. Thus COPE was intended to be a long-range program from the start and was designed so that results would be readily accessible to cooperators, not confined to scientific journals.

The COPE Program's original focus was biophysical aspects of riparian zone management and reforestation practices, but the program eventually expanded to include management of upslope second-growth and integrated management of riparian and upslope habitats. Because the Oregon Coast Range is in a mix of private and public ownership and contains a mosaic of even-aged stands, it is a good field laboratory for onsite research. Overall the COPE Program has conducted 62 studies; it has resulted in hundreds of publications and presentations, and scientists and cooperators have conducted many field trips together. The range of studies has been correspondingly wide.

Scientists conducting fundamental studies

• developed ways to analyze and choose among regeneration alternatives
• looked at vegetation and landforms relative to the distribution of salmonids
• developed software to support decisions for reforestation
• established guidelines for managing major shrub and hardwood species
• looked at effects of different kinds of site preparation after 10-20 years of stand growth
• determined how understory vegetation reacts to thinning
• developed spatial databases and models to help understand the effects of management actions on resources
• looked at recreation management and how best to integrate that use with others
• looked at how tree regeneration and other management activities affect fish and wildlife habitat
• examined sites disturbed by flooding, windthrow, sheet erosion, and other natural processes to better understand the dynamics of riparian vegetation
• looked at how pastures versus forests serve to help keep nitrogen from reaching streams
• developed information to help people identify and manage slope stability
• looked at riparian wildlife diversity and habitat needs.

Adaptive studies looked at more specific issues, such as

• how commercial thinning regimes affect the overstory and understory vegetation and wildlife
• effects of fertilizing and pruning trees
• how to check response of riparian resources to management strategies
• influence of forest management on bat populations, bird abundance, and ecology.

One specific example of adaptive research is Bill Emmingham's (Forest Science) studies of conifer regeneration in riparian areas. Left untreated, conifer establishment is extremely slow and sparse in riparian areas dominated by red alder and salmonberry. Emmingham's research, and that of Sam Chan (Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station), has shown ways in which silvicultural treatments can be used to establish conifers in riparian areas. This research will have long-term benefits for fish and wildlife.

Many of the COPE Program's findings regarding riparian management have been incorporated into the state's Riparian Protection Rules. As a result of the work done by the COPE Program, our understanding of forest and stream ecosystems in the Oregon Coast Range and how to better manage them has increased dramatically. This effort was only possible because of consistent and strong support from a wide variety of organizations interested in cooperating to develop new information to better manage multiple resources.

Organizations that have provided support to the COPE Program include:

Federal agencies: