Session Information
| Session | Poster Session | | Date | Monday (2008-04-07) | | Time | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM | | Room | Grand Terrace |
Presentation Information
| Presenter | Janet Ohmann | | Title | Implications of social and ecological gradients for conservation planning in large, multi-ownership, forested landscapes | | Affiliation | PNW Research Station, USDA Forest Service | | Authors | Janet Ohmann, Jeffrey Kline, Ralph Alig, Matthew Gregory | | Keywords | Conservation planning, Ecological gradients, Forest structure, Land ownership, Land use change | | Presentation Type | Poster | Abstract:
Ecoregional assessments provide the foundation for conservation planning, but often emphasize public lands and reserves and exclude private lands, which can lead to missed opportunities or unintended consequences. Forest landscapes are comprised of numerous parcels whose owners are diverse in their ecological resources, management objectives, and legislative and regulatory constraints. These differences strongly influence land use decisions and the ability to meet conservation goals in particular locations and across larger, multi-ownership landscapes. Decisions by individual landowners contribute to aggregate regional trends that often affect biological community types disproportionately.
We use two regions in Oregon, USA, to illustrate the importance of considering the full range of variation in ecological gradients, land ownership, and management emphasis in landscape planning. We compared how forest composition and structure varied along a continuum of management emphasis, from commodity production to environmental protection. The Coast contained more forest industry and state land and very little wilderness, and the Cascades were dominated by federal lands and abundant wilderness. Management emphasis classes were well distributed across ecological gradients in the Coast, but social and ecological gradients were confounded in the Cascades, with federal lands and wilderness concentrated at higher elevations. Variation in species composition in both regions was explained primarily by environmental factors, but some forest types were linked to particular management emphasis classes because of where they occurred along environmental gradients. Forest types at low elevations, on private lands, and outside reserves (foothill hardwoods in the Coast and juniper woodlands in the Cascades) were least protected. In contrast, >80% of montane conifer forests were in reserves. Variation in forest structure was associated with ownership and disturbance history in the Coast, but linked to stronger environmental gradients in the Cascades. Older forest was mostly on public lands in both regions but less abundant in the Coast. Most early seral forest was privately owned, originated after timber harvest rather than natural disturbance, and lacked legacy trees. Strong differences between the two regions underscore the need to consider ecoregions individually rather than apply blanket approaches to conservation.
Influencing management decisions of private landowners to encourage biological conservation involves a variety of approaches including regulation, incentives, partnerships with conservation organizations and government agencies, education and outreach. Partnerships are more feasible for industrial owners, with larger blocks of land concentrated in fewer ownerships. Conservation efforts with nonindustrial private owners are more piecemeal due to larger numbers of owners and smaller and more fragmented parcels. |
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