PARENT SESSION
Poster Session 1 / Sesion Carteles 1: Production Systems / Sistemas de Produccion
Tuesday, January 10 / Martes, 10 de Enero, 6:00 - 7:30 pm, Salon Yucatan, Lobby Level, Fiesta Americana

Integrating natural disturbance principles into forest policy for the Coast Range of Oregon.

Johnson, Norman, Thompson, Jonathan^*,,

ABSTRACT- Using the historical range of forest conditions as a reference for managing landscapes has been proposed as a coarse-filter approach to biodiversity conservation. We examine the potential for integrating this concept into forest policy in the Coast Range of Oregon, an area containing approximately two million hectares of productive forest in a mixture of public and private ownerships. We start with likely forest management under the current policy environment and then discuss changes that would make forest management more compatible with natural disturbance processes. We draw three major conclusions: 1) the complexity of land tenure makes it challenging to apply these ideas in the Coast Range, and 2) the difference between profit-maximizing regimes and historical regimes will likely create significant resistance to implementing fully policies based on the frequency of natural disturbance. 3) a number of modest changes in State forest practice regulations could move forest management in the direction of historical disturbance processes.

SPANISH ABSTRACT- .