Challenges of New Year met with great people
In 2016, Oregon was the sixth-fastest-growing state in the nation. There are now 4 million Oregonians, twice as many as when OFRI was created in 1991. More than half of today's Oregonians weren't born here, and 83 percent live in urban areas. As a result, fewer residents are connected to the state's rural history, culture and reliance on forestry and natural resources. This presents a challenge to OFRI's public education efforts.
Fortunately, our efforts are aided by wonderful, well-qualified people who are passionate about sustainably managing our state's forests. For example, in this edition of our newsletter we highlight a Lane County family who have been named Oregon's 2016 Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year. We announce that the winner of the national Society of American Foresters Young Forester Leadership Award is from Hillsboro. And our own Mike Cloughesy, who has more than 30 years of experience in forestry and outdoor education, was elected to the Society of American Foresters national board.
Getting the public to regard the forest sector in a new, forward-looking way isn't always easy. As we enter 2017, our thanks to all who are dedicated to sustainable forest management, for both timber and non-timber resources, and to educating others about the importance of forest stewardship. Keep up the good work.
For the forest,
Paul Barnum
Executive Director
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Forest program served 5,000 students in 2016
Fifth-grader Carly Rose's favorite part of visiting the Rediscovery Forest at The Oregon Garden in Silverton was gaining a better understanding of Oregon's forests.
"I really liked learning about the forests and how we plant a new tree for every tree that is cut down," she says.
Carly, who attends Pratum Elementary School in Salem, is among the more than 5,000 students who've participated in educational field trips to the OFRI-managed Rediscovery Forest since the Oregon Garden Natural Resources Education Program debuted last spring. The program, a joint initiative of OFRI and The Oregon Garden, wrapped up its fall season in November. It will resume in March.
The program offers free student tours of the 15-acre Rediscovery Forest, where they learn about forests and natural resources through a variety of hands-on activities, says OFRI Environmental Educator Rikki Heath. Topics covered include forest ecology, wildlife habitat, and forest plant and animal species.
"For many students the field trip is their first visit to a forest, and I hope to get them excited about what they see as well as addressing any misconceptions they have," she says.
Field trips to the Rediscovery Forest will be offered again this year, starting March 13. An online form for teachers to submit a field trip request and apply for bus transportation reimbursement is available on OFRI's K-12 education website,
LearnForests.org.
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Forest Service leaders take mass timber tour
Some 60 U.S. Forest Service leaders from across the Pacific Northwest toured two mass timber buildings while in Portland for a regional meeting this past fall.
Forest Service supervisors from Region 6, which includes the 16 national forests in Oregon and Washington, toured The Radiator and Albina Yard office buildings in north Portland. OFRI Director of Forest Products Timm Locke organized the tour for Forest Service staff to learn more about Oregon's mass timber construction movement.
The tour also featured a stop at the construction site on North Williams Avenue for Carbon12, an eight-story condominium building that is being built using cross-laminated timber (CLT). Ben Kaiser, principal of Portland-based Kaiser Group and the developer for Carbon12 and the nearby Radiator building, led that portion of the tour. He explained that construction of The Radiator helped set off a mass timber construction boom in Portland driven by the appeal of wood for aesthetic and environmental reasons.
"You get the efficiency of a 21st century building with the look of an old warehouse," he told tour attendees. "There's just something about wood that makes it seem like you're more in tune with the environment."
The tour concluded at Albina Yard, a four-story creative office building on North Albina Avenue. It was the first structure in the United States to use Oregon-produced CLT in a building-wide structural system. Jonathan Heppner of LEVER Architecture, the Portland-based firm that designed the building, showed tour attendees around. He also updated them on another LEVER project that uses CLT, the 12-story Framework Tower that will be built in the Portland's Pearl District.
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Forest Literacy Plan inspires Texas version
The OFRI-produced conceptual guide for teaching K-12 students about Oregon's forests inspired Bowie to embark on an effort to create a forest literacy plan for Texas. She and Leslie Kessner, conservation education coordinator with the Texas A&M Forest Service, sought the counsel of Norie Dimeo-Ediger, OFRI's director of K-12 education programs, on creating a Texas version of the Oregon Forest Literacy Plan.
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essner says the Texas plan will have a similar format to the Oregon Forest Literacy Plan while addressing what makes Texas forests unique. This includes a larger emphasis on urban and privately owned forests, which make up the majority of forests in the state.
"The Oregon plan is fantastic in how it was laid out, and the structure," she says. "We're really just adapting it."
She and Bowie say they appreciate the advice of Dimeo-Ediger, who oversaw an update to the Oregon Forest Literacy Plan last year, to undergo a similar process of collaborating with many different partners, including K-12 educators, forestry professionals and academics. In December, they convened a working group with a wide range of collaborators to help develop the Texas Forest Literacy Plan. It's scheduled to publish in April.
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OTFS honors Lane County family
as Oregon Tree Farmers of the Year
The Oregon Tree Farm System has named Lane County family forest landowners Dave and Dianne Rankin as Oregon's 2016 Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year.
The Rankins received the honor at a November award luncheon at the World Forestry Center in Portland. They have owned 194 acres of forestland just south of Florence for the past 34 years and managed it for income, recreation, and fish and wildlife habitat.
The OTFS also honored family forest landowners from five other Oregon counties as 2016 County Tree Farmers of the Year for their exceptional work in sustainably managing their forestlands. The county winners were the Jack Thronson family of Clackamas County, Nicholas and Megan Dahl of Lincoln County, Joe and Shirley Holmberg of Linn County, Mel and Wendy Mortensen of Washington County, and Susan Watkins and Arnie Hollander of Yamhill County.
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Local wildlife biologist receives national award
Hillsboro-based wildlife biologist and OFRI contractor Fran Cafferata Coe has received the Society of American Foresters' Young Forester Leadership Award for outstanding contributions to the forestry profession.
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afferata Coe accepted the award during a ceremony at the 2016 SAF National Convention in Madison, Wis. The Young Forester Leadership Award recognizes the leadership of a young forestry professional in the development and promotion of an individual program or project, or for a sustained leadership role benefitting the practice of forestry.
"This year's award recipients join a group of elite individuals who have demonstrated unusual dedication to the practice and promotion of forestry," SAF CEO Matt Menashes says.
Cafferata Coe owns Cafferata Consulting, a natural resources consulting firm that specializes in helping forest landowners and managers understand how to effectively manage their forests for both healthy wildlife populations and sustainable timber production. As a contractor to OFRI, Cafferata Coe has contributed to the "Wildlife in Managed Forests" series of publications, among other projects.
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Summits focus on outdoor education
The Oregon Outdoor Education Coalition is hosting a series of summits geared toward creating a statewide network that builds public support for outdoor education programs.
The coalition put on the first Outdoor Education Summit
this past fall in central Oregon, and has two more planned for 2017. A Feb. 8 summit will take place at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, and another is planned for this spring at a to-be-determined location on the Oregon coast or in the mid-valley region.
OFRI is among the sponsors of the one-day summits, which aim to advance the case that outdoor education is a key to having healthy communities, skilled workers and high-performing students. Educational administrators, business professionals, community leaders, policymakers, and environmental and outdoor educators are invited to collaborate at the summits on finding ways to incorporate outdoor education into the curriculum of every classroom in Oregon.
To attend one of the summits, contact Alicia Brady at
alicia@oregonoutdoored.org
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The Oregon Legislature created the Oregon Forest Resources Institute in 1991 to advance public understanding of forests, forest management and forest products and to encourage sound forestry through landowner education. A 13-member board of directors governs OFRI. It is funded by a portion of the forest products harvest tax.
Copyright © 2017, Oregon Forest Resources Institute. All Rights Reserved.
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On the blog
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OFRI staffer joins SAF board
OFRI Director of Forestry Mike Cloughesy has been elected to represent Oregon on the Society of American Foresters Board of Directors.
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loughesy started a three-year term this month as a board member for SAF, a national organization representing forestry professionals. The 14-member board provides leadership and direction to achieve the organization's mission of advancing the sustainable management of forest resources through science, education and technology.
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Logging association to hold annual convention
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Associated Oregon Loggers
will
host its 47th annual convention Jan. 19-21 at the Valley River Inn in Eugene.
The convention program will address political developments, technological advancements and business issues important to the logging industry. Speaker topics include workers compensation claims management, unemployment benefits, log truck insurance, social media strategies, and tethering technology for logging on steep slopes. Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson is scheduled to deliver the convention's keynote address.
The event will be hosted by AOL for all regular, cooperative and affiliate members of the statewide trade association. For more information, contact AOL at 503-364-1330.
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Mass Timber Conference returns to PDX
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The conference, which the Forest Business Network put
on for the first time last year in Portland, will be held March 28-30 at the Oregon Convention Center. It will feature presentations by international experts who will address ways to advance cross-laminated timber and the mass timber industry, and increase the use wood in mid-rise and tall buildings across the world. The agenda will be organized into tracks for different audiences interested in mass timber construction, such as architects, engineers and manufacturers.
OFRI Director of Forest Products Timm Locke is a member of the conference steering committee.
Registration for the event is available online.
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Silviculture webinars planned
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A
four-part webinar series scheduled in March will feature presentations on different silvicultural methods used for timber harvesting in the Pacific Northwest.
The live webinars geared to foresters, loggers and woodland owners will be held from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. on March 1, 8, 15 and 22. Panelists include foresters, silviculturists and forest engineers with private timber companies, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. They will compare and contrast major Pacific Northwest timber harvest methods such as clearcutting, variable-retention and selection harvesting, and share their varying approaches to planning and conducting harvest operations.
The seminar series is sponsored by OFRI along with the BLM, the Forest Service, the Western Forestry and Conservation Association (WFCA) and the Emerging Technology Accelerator. Registration will be available on the WFCA website, westernforestry.org.
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The Ridge Trail at the north end of Portland's Forest Park offers prime views of the St. Johns Bridge before plunging into lush forest that offers decent tree cover for hikes on rainy winter days.
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