2004 Starker Lecture Transcripts

Igniting Community Involvement in Forest Management

Marty Main, Ashland City Forester
Jack Shipley, Applegate Partnership
Victoria Sturtevant, Professor of Sociology, Southern Oregon University

Marty: I have been a forestry professional in southwestern Oregon for 25 years, striving to achieve ecologically sound outcomes of forest management on the ground. For that to happen, these forest management activities have to be socially and economically sound as well. When those three -- ecological, social, and economical -- come together on the ground, it’s a great feeling; in fact, it’s somewhat addictive and hard not to want to do again, and again.

The task here today is to talk about social realities, which have become increasingly important to me because of the strong effect they have upon outcomes on the ground. Being addicted to positive outcomes on the ground, I have somewhat naturally been drawn to dealing with the factor that I believe has been limiting in achieving those outcomes. I have been fortunate in most of my professional career to deal primarily with private, non-industrial small woodland owners. As I hope you will see from this presentation, the opportunity to work directly with this comparatively simple social reality -- an individual small woodland owner -- has allowed me much freedom in being able to take ecologically sound forest and resource management principles and apply them directly onto the ground. And, as I’ve gotten older, watch those outcomes over time. What fun! And so rewarding!

More recently, I’ve been working with forest management in more diverse and complex social environments, and have noticed how the operating environment on the ground changes. As a forester/ecologist/land manager, I recognize the importance of excellent technical understanding and background in the success of any project on the ground. Technical expertise in a number of disciplines carefully and professionally applied is imperative if a project is to succeed, particularly in ecologically complex areas like southern Oregon

Socially, however, I’ve found that there are no experts; everyone is an expert socially. We are all social beings – it’s the great equalizer in social endeavors – and we all bring our personal stuff to the social table. I’ve found that we professionals often have to take off the technical hat a bit in these situations, because everyone can be our equal in the social arena. And that can be tough for us as professionals because, at the least, we know that a reasonable balance of the two--technical and social--is needed in order to be effective. And we professionals know how awfully hard it can be sometimes just to pull off the technical in a way that is ecologically appropriate, let alone economically sound -- and this even without considering the social and political realities that exist. This certainly can be exasperating to ecologically-minded professionals when important work has to wait for the appropriate social environment to develop before work can begin. This is certainly part of the picture in the landscape I am going to talk about today.

The Ashland watershed is particularly ecologically sensitive in ways that make technical expertise in a number of disciplines very important if any responsible measure of success in forest and resource management is going to happen on the ground. Conversely, the extreme threat of an uncharacteristic, large-scale, high severity wildfire makes lack of action perhaps even more untenable and irresponsible than less-than-perfect action. This is not a good situation in which to overemphasize social realities in ways that potentially compromise the importance of technical and professional expertise. When do social realities take a back seat to ecological and technical realities in order to protect important threatened ecosystem values? And vice-versa? As always, ultimately it is an appropriate integration of the two that is imperative, with an associated recognition that some landscapes are more amenable to taking time for the social process to evolve than are others.

Success in such endeavors also requires that we professionals fully embrace ecological realities where all parts of the ecosystem count, and an understanding that they’re all interconnected. Similarly, and perhaps just as importantly, we professionals must also recognize that, in social realities, the same is true- everyone counts, and we’re all in it together. It’s been eye-opening for me as a professional to see the similarity between these two realities -- ecological and social -- and I’ve certainly been informed by, if not humbled by, studying and participating in both. It is my suspicion that key to successful undertakings in either arena, and certainly when both are involved, is an in-depth understanding of the relationships involved.

Fortunately, we in the professions surrounding forestry, ecology and resource and land management, have much to offer within the social arena. Ultimately, to be successful in interactions within either of these systems, there is an increasing need to expand both our time frames and our scales of reference; there’s no profession in our culture that has had as much experience as we have. Forestry, ecology and resource management professionals routinely think out 50 to 100 years or more in the work that we are doing today. In our busy world, characterized by 10-second sound bites, this is no small accomplishment. Simultaneously, spatial analytical tools, such as GIS and satellite imagery, are allowing our profession to visualize increasing scales of reference, and the interconnectedness of ecological structures and functions across multiple scales. Our roles analyzing and explaining effects over increasing scales of reference, both over time and space, are increasingly helping the larger public to see the bigger picture and our place in it. At the same time, the larger public’s continuing insistence on being involved in meaningful ways in resource management decision making is helping to reinforce what should be common knowledge for all interested or working in either ecosystems or social systems -- everything (everyone) counts and everything is (we’re all) interconnected and dependent on each other.

Here is a map of the Ashland and Applegate watersheds in Southern Oregon. (Picture 1) I will talk about Ashland; Jack, about Applegate. And here are some pictures to give a sense of the forests down here.

From my perspective and the perspective of most of us who manage forests in this part of the world, we’re looking at forest management as the initiation of some kind of planned disturbance to achieve desirable outcomes -- depending on the objectives and values of the owners. Very often, our planned disturbances (i.e. vegetation manipulations) are designed to encourage vegetational structures and ecological functions that fall within, as much as possible, the historical range of possibilities. To do that well, we have to have a good understanding of disturbance history for any particular site and how that's changed over time and scale.

(Picture 2) This stand has really changed over time: ninety-year-old ponderosa pine overstory, 14-16 inches in diameter above a very dense understory of Douglas-fir, primarily the result of exclusion of fire. Very common picture at low elevations in southern Oregon. One of the expected outcomes of this kind of dense forest is waves of rapidly expanding bark-beetle populations and associated bark-beetle related mortality (generally associated with drought conditions) and accumulating evidence that this form of disturbance is on the edge, or perhaps even outside the historical range. The first systematic study of bark beetle population dynamics was done in 1913 in the Ashland watershed at a newly established research station. At that time epidemic levels of mortality were estimated at 0.5% per year. We have been witnessing mortality rates as high as 3% per year in recent years.

(Picture 3) Forest diseases are another natural form of disturbance that performs, like insects or other forms of disturbance, critically important ecological roles in healthy functioning ecosystems. However, our most common forest disease in the Ashland watershed, Douglas-fir dwarf mistletoe, has very likely increased dramatically in the last century of fire exclusion, perhaps also trending outside its historical range. A recent inventory in a City of Ashland owned 160 acre parcel in the Ashland watershed found over one-quarter of the Douglas-fir infected with dwarf mistletoe, not an uncommon occurrence, but one that not only ultimately ends in mortality, but is likely to continue spreading in the absence of fire. Decreasing vigor in diseased trees subsequently increases the potential for bark-beetle related mortality. (Picture 4) Greater numbers of snags and dwarf mistletoe brooms subsequently increase fire behavior, perhaps in significant proportions in the right situations. What I’d like to point out is that these interactions among functional processes may result in cumulative effects and trends that result in disturbances of greater size, intensity, and duration, with potentially escalating deviation from historical norms, particularly as compared to considering each disturbance individually, or in isolation.

These are risky possibilities if not well understood. For example, the cumulative effects of the density/disease/insect interactions and subsequent increased potential for larger scale, higher intensity fire also aggravate the potential for slope failure -- a disturbance event that is already of frequent occurrence and of higher intensity in the erosive, decomposed granitic soils of the Ashland Watershed -- even in unmanaged and/or unroaded portions. (Picture 5)

Socially, these interactions are experienced as floods in the plaza in downtown Ashland (1997), with a tendency for finding simplistic explanations for the cause, when the answer lies in a complex series of changes brought about by rather significant changes in disturbance history affected by social values of the previous 150 years.

I'd like to talk about how our social perceptions of ecological realities are affected by scale. Starting with small scale -- a 5-acre parcel in a dense manzanita brushfield with a trophy home stuck in the middle, and a budding small woodland owner who doesn't know the difference between an oak and a pine, but wants to do what’s right for his little chunk of heaven. Reading his local and regional papers, he decides that he would like to grow old growth forests on his 5 acre slice for future generations, including his grandchildren. These five acres are surprisingly devoid of biodiversity- another key value recently discovered in his quest to create perfection. At the next spatial scale, however, the five acre parcel is also part of a larger 200 acre brushfield, owned mostly by a neighbor with 400 acres in the same watershed. This second owner, at this somewhat larger scale, also wants to promote old-growth, and although he has none on his property, at least he has more biodiversity, with stands of various types mostly initiated in the last century when fires were shifted away from frequent low-intensity to more infrequent, moderate to high intensity in the initial settling of the area. Both owners agree, however, that they really have way too much of that dastardly “brush,” and both strive valiantly to replace the stuff with conifers that they hope will one day be the old-growth forest that they’ve read about. At both scales, ownership values suggest removing manzanita and planting conifers- a process that in many cases has only limited likelihood of successfully developing into the type of old growth forest visualized by these two woodland owners.

Expanding to the next scale of reference juxtaposes this small 750 acre subwatershed within the larger 14,000 acre Ashland watershed. Now, we find that there is about 80% mid to late successional forest at this larger scale of reference. Biodiversity assessments at this scale actually suggest that there is a shortage of early seral vegetation, and suddenly that brushfield the two owners wanted to replace becomes important to retain at this larger scale. (Picture 6)

Then, if we step back even yet one more level and look at the Ashland watershed regionally from a satellite, this area really stands out as a large, relatively undisturbed block of mid- to late successional forest in southern Oregon, and furthermore in a critical location, physically linking the Cascade and Klamath/Siskiyou bioregions. On a regional, if not national scale, a priceless treasure. From these examples, one can see that our sense of ecological values can change dramatically with associated changes in scale of reference.

In a similar vein, social realities are affected by scale of reference as well. I've worked with each of these ownerships; with individuals and organizations at different scales. Social realities also change as we alter scale of reference, and those changes in the social realities can have very important outcomes on the ground. In the case of the first two owners I described, we had comparatively simple social reality (i.e., establishing a workable relationship between two individuals). This is a social scale that all of us can understand. Once that workable relationship was established, we went through the social stuff quickly down to the ground. I make that sound simple, but there are a lot of twists and curves dealing with one individual on the ground. For example with Bill, the first thing he told me when we met was, “Do anything you want, but don't cut anything live.” I asked, “Well, what would you like me to do?” Then we started talking. I suggested that if nothing is done and fire visited his site, from a fire standpoint he had a lot to lose; a lot of his particular objectives, ecological and even some economic objectives. But it was still a social process. Three years later, I was best man at his wedding. Five years later, he and his wife were recognized as Oregon’s Tree Farmer of the Year, having completed, amongst other things, both horse and helicopter logging, each implemented with the underlying goal of restoring a landscape to an ecologically more appropriate condition.

I like to believe that the quality of that social relationship got reflected on the ground in the kind of sensitive innovative forest and resource management that was ultimately accomplished. Of course, the opposite can be true as well, and we all can think of situations where social misunderstandings of one kind or another ultimately get inflicted upon our landscape. Gaining a deeper awareness of ecological interrelationships over space and time can help improve neighborly relationships, as well. Examples can be found on all ownerships--agency, industry, and private non-industrial--and over time, at all scales (e.g., countless examples exist of neighbors working together for the first time to improve such resource values as wildlife, fisheries, and numerous others and in the process becoming better neighbors as well).

As I said, however, two individuals can be a relatively simple social unit. At the next scale of reference -- the subwatershed scale with multiple owners -- social realities can become more complex, sometimes significantly so. Cumulative impacts at these increasing scales can easily occur, particularly if a viable social unit that allows collective assessment has not been established. This can happen even when individual owners are conducting management in ecologically appropriate ways. In 1990, I was working out on the 400 acre property previously mentioned, and I felt good about what we were doing on that land, but had little knowledge of what other neighbors were up to. Even assuming that other owners were operating in an ecologically responsible manner, we had little understanding as to how our individual actions collectively could be having cumulative effects. In this 750 acre subwatershed, we had 10 owners with different sets of objectives, and different levels of knowledge and capabilities in being able to interact with their lands in ecologically responsible ways. Out of these concerns we initiated a cooperative planning effort across ownerships in forestland settings, a very interesting experience and quite different from working with individuals. These owners worked together over 24 months to arrive at a cooperative understanding and agreement to work together to improve things for the watershed as a whole, and perhaps in the process, for themselves as well. A non-obligatory coordinated resource management plan (CRMP) was developed and signed by all.

In 1990, that was a somewhat revolutionary concept, for people to sit down and talk to each other about such things. Through this process, individual owners' sense of responsibility for outcomes no longer stopped at their property lines, but rather they were able to grasp the notion that nothing in nature recognizes these artificial boundary lines we've artificially placed on the landscape -- not water, wildlife, insects, disease, or numerous others, and certainly not fire. Through the social process, individuals came to understand that they could impact, and be impacted by individuals and events off of their property, sometimes far away and perhaps even a long ways in the past. Conversely, improved resource management benefits could be realized by operating cooperatively, perhaps in ways that couldn’t occur otherwise. Wildfire management planning was able to be implemented across property lines, greatly increasing its effectiveness. Watershed-level recreation planning allowed closure of unwanted trails, and routing of appropriate use onto ownerships that encouraged recreational use. Coordinated planning and resulting economies of scale allowed for a helicopter timber sale involving several owners.

Just as importantly, however, were unexpected social benefits that grew out of the project. At-risk kids from a local high school were put to work in the watershed in an innovative program that increased the validity of their education, as well as getting important forest and resource management work accomplished. Fundraising spearheaded by group members helped purchase a parcel for sale in the watershed at a critical location from a wildfire management perspective. This purchase not only ultimately grew into a wildland park owned by the City of Ashland (with a conservation easement owned by a local land trust), but also allowed for implementation of much needed fuel reduction and other wildfire management activities that otherwise would likely not have occurred. One owner didn’t build a much-desired barn on his property because of what he’d learned in the group (the impacts on the steep, erosive soils and subsequent sediment delivery into the hydrologic network) and because of his acknowledged effect on how the rest of the group might feel. These are all examples of outcomes that resulted from considering expanded scales of reference and time frames, both ecologically and socially. In understanding the importance of working together to limit wildfire potential, individuals began to understand and act on both ecological and social realities that suggested everyone (everything) has a role socially (ecologically) and we're all interconnected. The similarities of the two systems -- ecological and social -- fed upon each other, allowing a deeper, fuller understanding of each.

The next level in increasing scale of reference, and subsequent changing social realities, is exemplified by a project mapping wildfire hazard for the City of Ashland in a 2,600-acre area of privately owned lands between the City’s urban boundary and more wildland settings owned by the US Forest Service. We produced a planning document used by the City of Ashland to prioritize fuel reduction activities in these interface lands. (Picture 7) In 2001, National Fire Plan grant funding was obtained to work on properties in the wildland/urban interface. Utilizing existing City administration and hiring a forest work grant coordinator, personal contact with over 150 landowners has resulted in significant fuels reduction and wildfire preparedness on a landscape scale, one owner at a time. The keys to success for this approach were funding for cost-share assistance and easy participation by individual owners through an already existing administrative office. Again, the actual progress made in limiting the potential for wildfire was both implemented on the ground in productive wildfire hazard reduction, but also in the social arena as owners became more aware of the role of fire in forest ecosystems and their place (literally) in that system.

At a similar scale, but in an entirely different social context is ongoing forest management planning and implementation on lands owned by the City of Ashland. In this project, the social dynamics, even though at the same general scale of reference, have been much more complex, producing subsequent differing possibilities for planned disturbance- the active manipulation of forest vegetation to achieve desired objectives. These 650 acres are located in the Ashland watershed -- a 14,000 acre area that is not only a late successional reserve under the Northwest Forest Plan but also supplies drinking water for the town. Contrast social realities working with one individual land owner with that of this level, where 17,000 residents have a concern and a voice, and occasionally a very large voice. The City gave us objectives (Picture 8), with key players being the City fire chief, City Council, a seven-member volunteer Forestlands Commission, and interested public. Given that Ashland is well known as strongly environmentally leaning, we knew that removal of commercial sized products, even within the context of ecologically sound forest management, would be a challenge socially.

As is often the case in many of the forests and ownerships that I work in, there was an abundance of other management functions that needed to be addressed as well, most notably non-commercial (and non-controversial) stand management activities designed to improve stand vigor and reduce wildfire hazard. In the process of doing this work over eight-plus years, we were able to slowly build public acceptance for and understanding of the need to actually go out and reduce stand densities. Working with the public on trails issues, implementing an effective inventory and monitoring plan with establishment of permanent plots, reforestation, slope stability mapping, and numerous tours simultaneously helped build social capital within the City and the community for active and sensitive forest and resource management.

This work was critically important in laying the foundation for Restoration Project, Phase 2, a timber sale implemented in 2004, after 3 years of working with an excellent and committed group of volunteers on the Forest Lands Commission who designed the framework and the ecological sensitivities for the harvest, part of a larger restoration effort. The sale was primarily designed as a thinning from below, coupled with a removal of recently dead small diameter conifers resulting from excessive stands densities (via fire exclusion), drought, and exploding populations of bark beetles. The breakdown of size classes (Picture 9) shows we're looking at 7, 8, 9 inch logs being lifted out by helicopter, necessitated by the steep, inaccessible topography and highly erosive soils. (Picture 10) Snags and coarse woody debris were closely monitored to meet pre-designated desired amounts, by size class. Intensive slash treatment followed to insure wildfire management benefits were ensuing. Native grasses and conifers were interplanted in the year following the sale.

In a unique attempt to adequately insure trust in the entire operation, every tree greater than 17 inches dbh was numbered and mapped, with an associated explanation recorded for why that tree was being removed. I issued a standing offer for any community member to go visit on the ground any tree marked for removal and discuss the reasons for harvest, as previously recorded. It took that kind of sensitivity to the social realities of the community to move forward with this kind of operation. One of the key elements I push is tours to the field. Get out of the office and into your forest with the public. I can't stress that enough. It's so much better out in the field having tours, I don't care who it's with -- the general public, environmental activists, SAF -- it all comes together much better in the field. People really like to be out there looking at the work that's been done, and to what is proposed. It allows development of a more personal attachment in the outcome and subsequent sense of increased responsibility for the land. (Picture 11)

Obviously, the social environment of forest and resource management on City lands is much different than those previously described. Nonetheless, the issue of scale and multiple ownerships changes again, when the one other owner in the Ashland watershed is considered -- the U.S. Forest Service. The need for a watershed level perspective was always inherent given that the Ashland Watershed is a municipal watershed providing water for the city. Coordination of actual management across property lines first occurred in 1997, in a prescribed burn in a strategic location initiated on US Forest Service lands and by design, crossing onto City of Ashland lands. The City had somewhat different objectives, particularly in 1997, and protection of larger conifers was paramount (Picture 12). You can see all the thinning, hand piling and burning we did prior to the burn to protect that large tree. A high priority for the City, building trust, a sense that, yes, big trees are important, and that we can manage in ways that not only protect these legacies, but in many cases promotes them as well. Really neat.

As expected, social realities again change when we look at this situation. We are embracing ecological relationships and forest and resource management at a different scale--that of the larger 14,000 acre watershed level, but now with only two owners. At first glance, two owners sounds relatively simple, except when one considers that one owner theoretically includes all of the citizens of Ashland, and the other owner includes all of the citizens of the United States. A complicated social undertaking, indeed. Embedded within this complex social reality is an equally complex ecological reality. The Ashland watershed is located in the driest (and most fire-prone) portion of the most diverse bioregion in the country and the Klamath/Siskiyou Mountains is a bioregion known nationally for its geological, habitat and species diversity. Within the nine linear miles going from the City of Ashland at 2000 feet elevation up to the top of Mt. Ashland at 7000 feet, the difference in rainfall is 20-60 inches. We have every fire regime, almost, in the West, and in this linear line it is a wonderful lab to look at changes in plant associations, fire regimes, and how to interact with them. It makes a real challenge professionally, and I really like that.

So that's where we are now, trying to work with the Forest Service in developing a plan for the entire watershed, across boundaries. I've been involved, helping to develop a community alternative to Forest Service proposed actions in a 22,000 acre project area. The community has developed their own Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) that offers an alternative strategy and now we're trying to interact with the Forest Service in a social environment where we all trust each other and want to go to lunch together and slap each other on the back. I don't know, we'll see. Part of the issue in the Ashland watershed is how strongly people feel about this watershed. We have stand densities that are beyond the theoretical map. It's incredibly dense. And, of course, we have insect and disease issues, at least in part influenced by the excessive stand densities. So the silviculturalists are really challenged working there. And then the geologist steps to the plate and says, “I don't know about that but these soils are really erosive. Do what you want, but we've got to protect the soil.” These decomposed granitic soils are some of the most erosive in our region. And then the late successional values and wildlife values are of regional, if not national, importance. And the environmental community looks at this and says, "Everything else may be important, but this is important.” The average Joe in town may not understand, or perhaps not even be interested in all these issues, but he sure as heck wants to be able to turn the water on in the morning. Others feel strongly about the opportunity to recreate, or to access their spiritual values in this beautiful area so close to town. Land managers see an awful lot of very steep, inaccessible land that greatly restricts management possibilities. As all of these spirited participants argue about how to interact, or not interact, with this landscape, the wildfire guy steps up and says, “Hey, you all lose if we have the kind of fire that's a potential here.” So we professionals look at this and say, “Why was I interested in this job?” That's the process that has led up to the larger watershed-level planning with the Forest Service. We're at this level now, trying to move forward under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA) and come together with a coordinated plan. We'll see how it works out, if they accept our plan, if the Forest Service moves forward. It's a new arena for them, as well.

The next level on increasing scales of reference is the 500,000 acre Applegate watershed, and I’ll turn that over to Jack Shipley to tackle.

Jack: I’d like to talk about the Applegate Fire Plan. (Picture 13) The Applegate is a 500,000 acre watershed that overlaps partially into California, including Siskiyou County in California, Jackson and Josephine Counties in Oregon. There are no incorporated cities within the Applegate; they are all unincorporated rural communities adding up to about 7,200 households and 12,000 people. The Forest Service manages about 33 percent, BLM is about 33 percent, the remaining 33 percent or so is private ownership. When we first started talking about the fire plan it was, “How do we encompass a fire plan that covers the entire 500,000 acres? What is the history of this ground?” We’re endowed with one of the most geologic and biologic diverse places in the United States, probably second only to Appalachia. Rainfall at my place, over the past two years, was an average of 9 inches a year; across the valley not ten miles away it was not uncommon to have 40-60 inches of rain a year. There are dramatic swings in what happens in this watershed.

The history of this place was fashioned a lot by early land management activities. The one that stands out is during the Gold Rush; at the same time as the 49ers in California we had gold miners in SW Oregon. Buncom, a community no longer there today, had a population of 2000, primarily miners. There are few stream reaches of the Applegate that were not hydraulically mined. For the miners, on the weekends in mid-summer the common practice was to go out and set the woods on fire to remove the vegetation off of this landscape. As a result of these fire events in the Applegate, smoke was so dense that shipping on the Columbia River was stopped because of visibility problems, as reported by the Oregonian about 129 years ago. Sailing ships that normally moved from the Portland and Seattle area to San Francisco had to move 50 miles further out to sea, again because of smoke from fires in Applegate. What is interesting is that if you go out into the Applegate now, a vast majority of the trees correspond to these fire events that are 129 years of age.

We started the conversation around the fire issues in the Applegate a couple of years ago. This particular process was community driven; we, not the BLM or USFS, got the NFP, Oregon Forest Resources Institute and National Forest Foundation monies to put together a fire plan. Those dollars were channeled through the Applegate Partnership so it was actually a non-governmental organization that was the driver for the development of the fire plan in the Applegate.

This is a fire hazard map of the Applegate and basically all of the red and all of the yellow is our problem. (Picture 14) The valley floors and some of the uplands and the upper reach higher elevations are less of a problem, but the rest is our challenge, especially if you think back to the ownership map where we had about 30% FS, 30% BLM and 30% private ownership and the checkerboard pattern. (Picture 15) My acreage, for instance, is an in-holding, totally surrounded by BLM land; the acreage where my house is has BLM on one side and private owners on three sides of me. So it is a complex place to do landscape-level management.

We ultimately ended up with 24 partners in the process – BLM, ODFW, USFS, NMFS, Jackson and Josephine counties, the fire districts, the watershed councils -- it just goes on and on. As we started to come together and talk about how to develop a fire plan for a 500,000 acre watershed, 7,000 households, a mixed-ownership across the landscape --- one day we had one of these “ah ha” moments when we were meeting down at the Medford District, Bureau of Land Management Office. “Let’s take all the ownership boundaries off the map; let’s make believe we own this entire 500,000 acres as one parcel of ground. Now then, what will we do?” That was the beginning point of how we ultimately started to develop the fire plan – this red document. So what we ended up doing was starting to look at the watershed as an entire parcel, we took all the lines off. How would we start? Where would we begin? What would we do, and why? We ultimately divided it up in to about 19 management units or subwatersheds – they were pretty much equivalent to 6 field watersheds. And interestingly enough, many of those watersheds corresponded to where people lived in their neighborhoods. The folks up Thompson Creek, Missouri Flat, where I live – interestingly, enough, those 6 field watersheds corresponded with where people live, how people identify to their neighborhoods. One of the things we did not want to do was to say that the folks up Thompson Creek were more important than the folks up Missouri Flat, or vice versa; we didn’t want to pit one 6 field watershed against another 6 field watershed as to which was most important. So we tried to classify the important kinds of issues within each of the 6 field watersheds so none were competing for limited dollars. We tried to include not only the private land, the outbuildings and houses, but also various wildlife needs and water – a broad cross-section of needs.

One of the things in a lot of folks’ way is the definition of the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) – we tried to move beyond that. Instead of drawing a 300 foot boundary around all of the houses in the Applegate and saying, “this is the WUI,” we said the Applegate, in its entirety, is the interface area. Whether we’re treating in the uplands or right down next to my house is immaterial. We are connected and what we really understood was – particularly after seeing the Biscuit Fire or the Rodeo-Chediski Fire down in Arizona several years ago – it can start a long ways away from the house and end up there, anyway, so you have to look at the whole package.

By the time it was all finished we had attended 50 meetings with the public and numerous others with agency staff. We got down to the neighborhood meetings, but also down to koffee klatches in peoples’ living rooms. This one (Picture 16) was up Slagle Creek where 12 neighbors got together one night and we presented a map of the Slagle Creek and asked, “What’s important to you folks?” Some people marked their houses, other people marked their corral, other people marked their water source – there were different values that started to emerge and they were able to start to prioritize their values in their particular drainage. It was a very empowering process.

We started doing a lot of demonstration sites, talking about fuels reduction work and thinning. People would say, “Where do I start and what do I do?” What we really needed to do was be aware that a lot of people didn’t have the foggiest idea of what we were talking about. They had just moved up from Los Angeles, they had bought their dream home and their property, and they were fat, dumb and happy. They did not realize they had a problem on their hands, never gave a second thought - the realtor didn’t tell them they had a fire hazard and so we had to start from square one in talking about these things. How do you build a brush pile? This pile was built by Fire District #9 (Picture 17) if it doesn’t look right, it’s their fault.

We’ve been putting together issues of the Applegator for almost ten years now; we’ve had funding from Oregon Water Enhancement Board (OWEB) and other sources. Two of these issues are papers we put out specific to the fire plan when we were developing it. These are delivered to every household in the watershed, and various agencies around the country. It is a communication tool. And then there’s the regular Applegator that comes out on a bi-monthly basis – a wonderful way to address the kinds of issues related to watershed management. We’ve been doing some social surveys as a follow-up to the fire plan itself. One question on the social survey asked who people trusted. The USFS, BLM, and Applegate Partnership were right around 14-16%. The organization they trusted the least was the county government. That was a shocker: 2% trusted them. What we’re starting to do is find out where people get their information, whom they trust and why. The organization they trusted the most was the fire districts: Applegate Fire District had a 64% trust level. We’re starting to get a handle on how to talk to people and it should be the Fire Chief.

(Picture 18) This is the Slashbuster, if you haven’t seen the Slashbuster at work: it’s really interesting – kind of horrifying. It’s a big giant weed whacker with an 8 foot blade – it demolishes oak trees and all kinds of stuff. This was on China Gulch – one of those places where cooperation and collaboration really worked. This particular machine was under contract with the BLM, they were working up China Gulch, and we got with the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Fire Districts and ended up having 42 property owners up China Gulch saying we want that machine on our property. And so as they were working with BLM, we were able to use a contract with ODF. As that machine was moving up on BLM ground adjacent to private property where the owner wanted work done, it moved onto that property. By the time it was over we had not only BLM and county land, but 42 private properties, done with the Slashbuster. Some people don’t like the machine - it leaves the slash on the ground, basically chops it up and leaves it on the ground. I think it’s really pretty spiffy, especially in terms of the cost. It comes out to about 300 bucks an acre on that particular ground which is a lot less than the $1300-1600 an acre doing it by hand.

The Applegate Partnership petitioned both the FS and BLM some years ago that we would like them to manage a minimum of 15,000 acres a year on each of their 5 management land management units in the Applegate. The Ashland Resource Area of Medford District of the BLM has been the only agency that has gotten even close to doing that. This last year they actually ended up managing almost 26,000 acres in the Applegate on the Ashland Resource Area, alone -- phenomenal. The Forest Service did less than 2,000 acres last year. Well do the math. If we’ve got a 500,000 acre watershed of which 2/3 is forested and we do 2,000 acres a year we’re never going to get there. And the kinds of issues and slides you saw in Marty’s presentation with mortality and bark beetle and all that – we’ve got the same kinds of forest issues. The epicenter for pine bark beetle disease is literally on the lands in Missouri Flat next to my property. It’s wild.

This particular slide is telling – when we started working with the BLM and the FS as the Applegate Partnership in 1992, one of our first requests with them is we do not want any more clear cuts in the Applegate on public lands. It’s an inappropriate tool on that particular ecotype because of the 9 inches of rain a year, for example. We have not seen a clear cut on public lands in the Applegate for a decade. This (Picture 19) tells the story of where they’ve been getting their volume in the Applegate since 1996. You can see that 27% is down in the 8 inches and under category. What we requested of the BLM and the FS was landscape-level projects; we’d like to see a minimum of 2,000 acres – we’d prefer to see 8,000-10,000 acres of treatment at a time when they start doing their land management. We don’t want to see 160 acres of management any more. If we’re really going to get ahead of the issue relative to fire, this is where we’re going to have to go. And on this map black dots are the private land owners who have started to do fuel treatment on their properties, fuel reduction and thinning. And it’s paying off. We have to keep cheerleading to make it go.

The last (Picture 20) is a neighborhood picnic in China Gulch where we passed out copies of the Fire Plan. We made enough fire plans to pass out to every household in the watershed; we spent about $56,000 in printing, alone. One of the things we did with the fire plan that we’re really proud of is get a local writer, Diana Coogle who teaches journalism at Rogue Community College, to edit this document for us. We had lots of technical help from the FS, BLM and private practice folks; then we had Diana take the technical speak and convert it to human speak – a bit scary for technocrats. It is homey, folksy and down home, but folks will read it. It’s not very scientific in its presentation, but the message is there and what we want to do is have the folks in the Applegate take this thing and use it, consume it.

Now Vicky will wrap up.

Vicky: It’s clear that there are many forest ecology issues in Southwest Oregon, but what we’ve been talking about today are the political, social and economic dimensions. For instance, Marty didn’t mention that it was very important that the sale in the Ashland Watershed nearly break even. Their loss of just $400 was actually a good thing – not only didn’t the City of Ashland lose too much money, but it kept the project definition as restoration rather than commercial, crossing the line of public acceptability. The figures presented by Marty and Jack with the diameter distribution of timber coming out of the Ashland and Applegate watersheds are quite similar, one on city land, the other on federal. We’re talking about a different kind of forestry, one that is not quite economically self-sustaining. We’re also talking about a different way of looking at forest management. A Forest Service representative from Washington D.C. stated that, with the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA), we’re shifting from protecting forests from people and property to protecting people and property from forest fires. The pioneering collaborative work Marty and Jack have done in their communities is enormously challenging. What does the new HFRA legislation mean for their communities, and others, who must collaboratively create wildfire protection plans? It is important to stress that Ashland and Applegate are high-capacity communities with highly educated and civically involved residents, what we social scientists call human and social capital. And they know how to leverage federal resources and networks to support their efforts. We have a lot of lessons to learn in these places, important lessons; but don’t “try this at home” unless you’ve got interested and willing residents and forestry professionals. Collaboration takes time, faith, openness and organizational resources; legislative mandates aren’t enough.

Having said that, here are a few of lessons I learned from participating in the planning process in the Applegate. The group produced their fire plan in ten months only because the Applegate Partnership had built the social infrastructure to serve as a foundation; just ten months between NFP funding to red notebooks hitting the streets. The agency folks couldn’t believe the deadlines set by a community plan coordinator, but they met them and surprised themselves that it could be done.

One of the goals was to get everybody to the table. As offered by one agency manager, “Then no one can complain after it’s done.” And they involved many partners, everyone bringing a different piece of information, perspective and skill to the table. There were different leaders in the process: a task master with a previous life as an administrator who knew how to get everyone coordinated, an ambassador who could keep people involved and find new resources. So this lesson is, many different partners and leaders bring more perspectives and skills. Burnout won’t be such an issue, especially if the timeline is short. And it helps to have a core of trust built through enduring relationships, such as created during the long Applegate Partnership history.

Also important was information, especially when presented spatially. The Applegate Plan benefited from the Partnership’s past work sharing information between agencies and creating an extensive GIS data base. Still, there were plenty of headaches assembling data across ownerships to create new maps, but they were useful for fuel reduction strategies and community outreach. In this (Picture 21) picture of a community meeting people are looking at a map of 100 years of fire history. Everyone could see a fire had occurred near their home and could grasp the probability of the next one. They could recognize common ownership in the problem, unlike the previous contentious meetings to dispute a timber sale. That’s not to say there wasn’t controversy. Although the small neighborhood meetings were highly successful, there were residents who didn’t want to participate in fuel reduction projects across boundaries or didn’t want their numbers on a phone tree. They were suspicious. They yelled at people with chainsaws to stay off their land, but once they saw the results of thinning, some changed their tune. So outreach occurred in multiple ways and at multiple levels; sometimes demonstration homes are the only way to reach skeptics.

Although Ashland is just one ridge over from the Applegate Valley, the settlement patterns and forest use are significantly different. The Ashland Watershed is relatively intact, under a single federal agency management and providing for a growing adjacent city its water, recreation and “wall paper.” Ashland is an interface community while Applegate is more intermixed; all but a few of Ashland’s residents live on less than an acre next to or within view of the forest while Applegate residents are more dispersed throughout the forested landscape. Although Ashland once had a number of mills, its relationship to natural resources is primarily symbolic or recreational; residents love the forest, but they don’t depend on natural resources for livelihood. Although Applegate residents are increasingly like those in Ashland – many new equity migrants -- the Applegate landscape still has remnants of “working” land. And most Applegate residents come to terms with the need of their forests for some management.

In Ashland, a series of catalysts set the context for the current collaborative process. The first was the new fire chief who arrived with the recent Oakland fire fresh in his mind. He built the capacity of the community to address wildfire by hiring a forestry consultant (Marty) who mapped residences at risk of wildfire and launched a project to restore city- owned forests in the watershed (as you have heard). Second, in 1996 the USFS proposed a 1,500 acre shaded fuel break project, HazRed (short for hazard reduction), which mobilized a grass roots collaborative response (The Ashland Watershed Stewardship Alliance). Third, National Fire Plan funding provided cost-share grants for fuel reduction work around homes in the watershed and a coordinator to increase outreach and local community awareness. Finally, under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, the Ashland District Ranger was able to entertain just one community alternative for a fuel reduction project. These were all outside forces and managed by highly capitalized or motivated agencies or organizations. In contrast, Applegate has no incorporated communities, straddles three counties and multiple other jurisdictions. Its political leadership is diffuse and mostly volunteer citizens created organizations such as the Applegate Partnership, Applegate Forum and Applegate River Watershed Council to tackle issues more formal institutions could not address.

While Ashland has offered many meetings to discuss the risk of wildfire, residents in general trust that the City will take care of them. They are not as certain that the Forest Service has the capacity to appropriately manage the Ashland watershed. Residents’ views regarding the watershed are strong and diverse; the communities of interest range from mountain bikers and skiers to environmentalists and aerial loggers. They are not glued together by a land stewardship ethic, as in the Applegate. Returning to Marty’s discussion of scale, people in Ashland relate to their watershed on an individual or organizational level; the city fire planning process is led by professionals hired by government entities and the watershed project citizen alternative involves representatives of interest groups (including the City) responding to a Forest Service plan. In the Applegate, neighbors worked together at a neighborhood scale, and they recognized the importance of working across the landscape. The various partners and land management agencies prioritized treatment, on private and public land, with the goal of coordinating projects across the watershed.

The message today has been that collaboration at all scales is important, and the nature of the collaboration may change across communities and scales. It is more difficult socially and politically at larger scales, which are more environmentally significant. Planning and implementation need to be done at a scale that humans can grasp and this is often the neighborhood. Only a few, often forest professionals, understand the larger scale, a scale that often generates the political interest. Wildfire and fuel reduction planning across ownership boundaries requires coordination and collaboration of people and organizations working across a variety of social units and ecological scales. We need to design processes and institutions that can move back and forth from the human, common interest scale to the larger ecological and politically significant scale. It won’t be easy, but Jack and Marty have shown that it’s possible and necessary to the future of our forests and communities.

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