Although the environmental debate in the Pacific Northwest seems unresolvable, researchers at OSU have been doing interdisciplinary research on campus in the hope of lending new understanding to the ongoing debate. In the College of Forestry, Steve Radosevich (Forest Science) enlisted colleagues Bruce Shindler (Forest Resources), Peter List (Philosophy), Sheila Cordray (Sociology), and Courtland Smith (Anthropology) to initiate the process, and the College provided seed money for what is now the Sustainable Forestry Partnership.

The project began as a series of weekly one-hour meetings; these initial academic discussions lasted almost two years. The group then assigned its researchers to start pulling information together on social, biophysical, environmental, and forest management impacts. The information was combined into a geographic information system (GIS) and a case study of forest management in the central Cascades.

One focus of the project is trying to explain changes in the forest and forest industry, by examining the context of existing information. None of the information being used is proprietary; it comes from such sources as satellite imaging, tax lots for ownership, and census data. From such data, Radosevich and his colleagues developed a three-dimensional topology of their subject area over time. This model illuminates the difference between federal and private ownership, with federal lands suffering from fragmentation of the forest, and private lands suffering overcutting and unexpectedly low regeneration. Researchers have also conducted several nationwide surveys to identify current regional and national attitudes about forest management practices.

In addition to its initial funding from the College of Forestry, the project has had funding from the US Department of State, under the Man and the Biosphere program. The newer Sustainable Forestry Partnership then sponsored a case study of the same areaÑthe McKenzie and Middle Fork of the Willamette rivers. This case study also provides a synthesis of issues, centering on sustainable forestry, over a longer history.

The team initially had to create a shared interdisciplinary language. Even though they all speak English, because of their academic disciplines the researchers often had different meanings for the same words and different words for the same meanings. To resolve that problem, they developed a matrix of spatial scales and disciplines that gave them the core for understanding one another's sciences.

The team also found they could not work just in the abstract; they needed to relate their discussion to a particular piece of ground. They chose the McKenzie and Middle Fork of the Willamette because it was an area for which they could get abundant information.

By developing new methods, the team hopes to clear the way for more interdisciplinary research. At present few agencies fund interdisciplinary research. One roadblock is the fact that interdisciplinary research is hard to evaluate; there are no established methods for the research. In the case of this project, researchers are having to develop the methods as they try to do the research. An encouraging development is new kinds of statistics that allow geographical and spatial comparisons that would not have been possible in the past.

To date, the research has necessarily focused on developing new, interdisciplinary methods. However, payoffs have come in several areas. An immediate one has been a change in the perspective of all involved. They have developed new perceptions, co-authored papers, and given joint talks. Many new classes across campus have resulted, with the interdisciplinary team teaching integrated classes.

Further down the road, researchers hope to use the methods they have developed to begin to understand the drivers of social and environmental change. With such an understanding, they believe, it would become possible to develop policies or incentives to direct change in ways the public wants.

Other areas for investigation include linking land-use patterns with social patterns. Immediate results should benefit land management agencies, landowners, and leaders of natural-resource-dependent communities. The team's long-term goal is to develop a methodology to predict land use, productivity, and the consequences of changes in land use, social and economic structures, and ecosystem properties and behavior.

The project has involved a lot of methodological research, to find better ways to do interdisciplinary research. Radosevich comments that, despite the difficulty of synthesizing so much diverse information, the cross-campus relationships have made it worthwhile.