Applegate River Watershed Forest Simulation Project

Applegate Partnership Advisory Committee 

Meeting 2-17-98 Chris Bratt, Randy Carey, Jack Shipley, Todd Kesterson, Tim Franklin

Notes taken by Todd Kesterson, Applegate River Watershed Council ph: 899-9982 (Watershed Council Office)
fax: 899-1256 E-mail: arwc@mind.net


General Comments:

Overriding goal of model must be to enhance watershed condition.

Process of this project should be as open and transparent as possible Community should be involved as much as possible.

Underlying assumptions must be made clear to public and available for public review (unlike "black box"
approach used on previous models).

We should get input from major environmental organizations such as Wilderness Society and World Wildlife Fund
(particularly the  Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion project).

Chris Bratt will contact WWF on possibility incorporating their project with ours.

Model should be viewed as a planning tool for the future, and also as learning tool to teach us what we don't know.

Assumptions of model will need to be modified over time as new data becomes available.  How is this possible given
limited budgets of researchers?

Access to model is important issue.  "Who will be the keeper of the keys?"
Maybe Southern Oregon University could have a copy for public use.  This may be our best bet if model requires
expensive workstation to run on.

Model should not support the a "one size fits all" approach to land management.  

Someone needs to watchdog this model to avoid misuse.  
Can we put a note in the goals or project write-up expressing our concerns over  misuse?

The reputation of the Applegate Partnership could be hurt if we don't watchdog the process.

When model is eventually reviewed by the scientific community, the Partnership should be made aware of these reviews.  

Model should be ground-truthed.

Make sure people are clear that model results are only one possible outcome of given management scenarios.  

Partnership should be viewed as a forum for ideas such as this one.  We don't want to be perceived as having an
agenda that we are trying to sell community on.   


Specific Suggestion Regarding Goals:

The words "experiment" or "hypothetical exercise" should be included somewhere.  

In 3rd paragraph of project overview, sentence "... develop a model specific to the Applegate Waterhshed that will reveal... "
: replace "will" with "could".  

Wood products should be a bi-product of other management goals addressing ecosystem health issues.  



* #5 "Help determine what a sustainable flow of forest products might be" instead of "provide a predictable... flow..."

* #6 "Help determine what a high quality ... might be" instead of "provide..."

* #8 "Help determine employment and small business opportunities" instead of "promote...".

* The key point here is that the model will offer suggestions rather than providing concrete solutions.
Other goals will need to be reworded in a similar manner.  

*In order for these modifications to make sense, the lead statement ("provide for forests, streams, and watersheds that")
will need to be modified to reflect the modeling process more directly.