Belton Tree Farms

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute

Family forest owner Mr. John Belton, hosted Fellows for a tour of his 200 acres near Mt. Hood. The land has been in his family for over 100 years, when one of his relatives was a Portland doctor and patients occasionally paid for services with a variety of items, including land. John discussed his management philosophy and objectives with Fellows, which is quite different from other ownership groups that Fellows have visited. John focuses on niche markets for his products, which besides logs, include cherry bark for basket making, alder chips for smoking, and finished products such as picnic tables. Click on John and the salal for more photos.

Oregon SAF State Meeting

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute

Fellows participated in the Oregon SAF state meeting in Bend, Oregon. In addition to hearing speakers and networking, the state meeting included a field tour of east-side fire issues involving stewardship contracting, restoration, and a variety of treatments to reduce fire risk. Click on the photo of the Black Crater Fire map for more photos.

Cascade Timber Consulting

President Dave Furtwangler and Silviculture Director Bill Marshall toured the Fellows around Cascade Timber Consulting in Sweet Home, Oregon. The company manages 145,000 acres, 95% of them belonging to the Hill family trust. We spent the day learning about the company, which has about 40 employees, and their work managing forestlands. We were able to visit an active cable logging operation and meeting with the forester in charge of the timber sale. This was the first logging operation for most of the Fellows. Cris was amazed at the engineering efforts on steep slopes and decided that he never wants to be the choker setter. The company prides themselves on their ability to get a good dollar for their logs, by maximizing their sorts and logging in the wintertime when prices are at a premium (and they prepare for this by having an excellent rock road system and giving extra care to environmental concerns). The afternoon was spent seeing some of their research in their Douglas-fir seed orchard – the oldest in the PNW, started in 1961. We also were able to see some of their vegetation management plots that were set up in conjunction with OSU. The plots show varied treatments for competing vegetation in young plantations over 5 years – now I think that Ma finally understands why we use herbicides in establishing stands! Dave and Bill were gracious hosts, and were very knowledgeable and patient with all of our questions. They even brought out some great props – including Giusseppi the stuffed Mountain Beaver – to illustrate their points. Click on the photo for more pics.

GreenWood Resources

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Fellows visited with Richard Shuren and Rick Stonex at GreenWood Resources. GreenWood breeds, tests, and grows hybrid poplars for use in the US, China, S. America, and other locations around the world. Click on Ma and his favorite clones for more photos.

Volunteer Day at Magness Tree Farm

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Fellows volunteered to help clean up Magness Tree Farm's trails and remove ivy alongside a team from Mason Bruce & Girard. Click on Nerijus and Ma for more photos.

Port Blakley Tree Farms

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Kelly Stanley allowed Fellows to tag along to an education tour with a group of fourth graders. Click on Cris for more pics.

April 2007 WFI Update now available

The newest WFI Update is now available for download from:
http://wfi.worldforestrycenter.org/WFIupdate4.07.pdf

In this issue, find articles on:
*New Fellow from Australia
*Outdoor recreation field tours
*Welcome to new Education Forester Jill Romine
*Recent events
*Updates from alumni around the globe

Thanks,
Angie
WFI Program Manager

Webster Nursery

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Fellows visited Webster Nursery, a 50 year old nursery run by the Washington Department of Natural Resources. The nursery provides 10 million seedlings a year to state and private lands for reforestation. The 260 acre facilities primarily grows 9 species, including Douglas-fir, true firs, pines, and alder. Webster is Washington’s only state run nursery and has been self-funded since 1962; all seeds, salaries, improvements and operations are paid from the nursery's $2.5 million yearly revenues. Click on the transplant team for more photos.

Tree School

Tree School is a one day training created by the Oregon State University Extension. The purpose is to give small woodland owners an opportunity to learn about subjects related to tree farming. This popular training had over 700 participants. Fellows participated in various classes ranging from marketing, measurement, nursery management, and mushrooms.

Roy Wu, Oregon Department of Forestry

Fellows interviewed Roy Wu and learned about his experience working with the Oregon Department of Forestry. Roy was deputy state forester from April 2000 until his retirement in March 2004 and was responsible for staffing and organization of the Oregon Department of Forestry's (http://egov.oregon.gov/ODF/) field operations and offices. He exercised leadership during the 2002 fire season, the most severe in recent history (http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/rogue-siskiyou/biscuit-fire/index.shtml), by providing statewide strategic focus and directing resource priorities. As deputy he worked closely with forest landowners to reorganize a portion of western Oregon field operations.

Columbia Gorge

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

To understand how Oregon manages highly used recreation areas, Fellows visited the most popular site in Oregon: Multnomah Falls. The falls are the tallest in Oregon at 620 feet and they receive over 2 million visitors each year. There were a few surprises here for Fellows, including the lack of an entrance fee and how little time visitors seemed to spend at the falls (about 15 minutes). Fellows also visited the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center.
Click on Nerijus for more photos.

Silver Falls State Park and Johnson-Swanson

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Education Director Rick Zenn toured Fellows around Silver Falls State Park and Johnson-Swanson, a WFC-owned tree farm. Silver Falls State Park is home to ten waterfalls and is very popular with visitors. The management model used at Silver Falls is similar to those used in national parks. Fellows learned about managing visitors alongside wildlife such as cougars, income opportunities such as campsites and cabins, and the historic legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corp. Click on Ma for more photos.

Australian Fellow joins WFI

Matthew Pope joined WFI in March for a one-year Fellowship. He is employed by Forests New South Wales and is based in the small regional community of Tumut. Matthew has worked as an operations forester with a broad range of responsibilities including fire, recreation, weed control, and fertilizing and more recently he has been working with construction and maintenance of an 8,000 km road network. He is the first Australian to come from a background in radiata pine plantations, of which his region is responsible for 90,000 hectares.

Matthew will be investigating the use of integrated field data management systems. A competitive global market for timber products has increased the need to efficiently manage every aspect of the forestry business. The amount of information required by managers has also increased, due to greater accountability requirements for investors, environmental regulations, and certification systems. This equates to greater information transfer “to” and “from” the field with as much real time information as possible.

There is growing adoption of handheld computers to manage information in the field that goes beyond simple inventory numbers, and most questions have a spatial element. The coupling of GPS with handheld GIS for various functions allows for easy collection and management of field data. Matt’s project hopes to gain ideas for expanding upon data collection functions for more complicated user questions. For example, imagine the efficiency boost if field users could quickly find answers to questions related to management issues of boundary types, road suitability for harvest, and culvert use, without returning to the office for additional information.

Matthew is accompanied by his wife Ainsley and children Keegan (4) and Will (2). Ainsley has recently completed her teaching degree, but she also has diverse educational and work experience, including degrees in Asian Studies and Aquaculture. Before teaching Ainsley worked with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife service as an interpretive ranger, which included fire fighting duties and managing a silver pearch fish farm. The Pope family has traveled extensively, thanks in part to one of Ainsley’s positions as a travel agent, and are looking forward to their year-long American adventure.

Oregon Logging Conference

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

The Oregon Logging Conference showcases logging equipment, tools, and techniques. Fellows explored the show. Click on the lumberjack for more pics.

February 2007 WFI Update available for download

The February 2007 WFI Update is now available for download from:
http://wfi.worldforestrycenter.org/WFIupdate2.07.pdf

In this issue, find articles on:
*Cristopher Lopez Paniagua's trip to Mexico
*Fellows' Speaker Series
*2007 International Educators Institute
*Recent events
*Alumni Updates

Thanks,
Angie, WFI Program Manager

Forests, Carbon, and Climate Change

Fellows attended the OFRI sponsored conference "Forests, Carbon, and Climate Change" held at Oregon State University. To learn more about the conference and report findings, download the report at: http://www.oregonforests.org/media/pdf/CarbonRptFinal.pdf

Ma presents at Tillamook SAF

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Zengwang Ma gave a presentation on forestry in Hebei, China, to the Tillamook chapter of the Society of American Foresters. The Fellows took advantage of this trip to the coast to visit Oswald West State Park, Camp 18, and Ecola State Park. Click on the guys for more photos.

Northwest Sportsman's Show

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Fellows visited the Northwest Sportsman's Show to learn about outdoor recreation opportunities. For more photos, click on Cris trying his hand at the bow and arrow.

Tillamook Forest Center

Tillamook Forest Center

With an advertising slogan of “find yourself in the forest,” the new Tillamook Forest Center tells the story of the Tillamook, an area once devastated by a series of fires in the 1930s and 1940s. Over 800 square miles of forest was destroyed and it took twenty years to replant in Oregon’s first major reforestation effort.

As the new forest grew, it took many years for recreation interest to develop, but as people began using the forest an obvious need to manage visitors emerged. The Tillamook is now heavily used by off-highway vehicles, campers, hikers, mountain bike riders, and others. The Tillamook Center took over ten years to plan and was envisioned as part of a larger recreation planning process for this state-owned forest area.

Doug Decker, the project manager for the center, spent a day teaching Fellows about the planning process to develop this new attraction, which opened less than a year ago. Doug shared his experiences in recreation planning using the “three E’s”: engineering, education, and enforcement. He discussed how vital each component is for successful management of recreation sites.

Developing interpretive themes and education centers is of particular interest to Zengwang Ma (China) and Cristopher Lopez Paniagua (Mexico), as their projects address minimizing visitor impacts in fragile ecological areas. The Tillamook story sparked much discussion and gave Ma and Cris some excellent ideas for application in their projects.

For photos visit: http://flickr.com/photos/18377428@N00/sets/72157594536442158/

Magness Tree Farm

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Originally uploaded by World Forest Institute.

Rick Zenn toured Fellows around WFC’s demonstration tree farm in Wilsonville, Magness Memorial Tree Farm. For more photos, click on the Fellows and the log cabin.