The Northwest Forest Plan: Origins, Components, Implementation Experience, and Suggestions for Change

Thomas, Jack Ward; Franklin, Jerry F.; Gordon, John E.; Johnson, K. Norman

doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00385.x

Cited by 155 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…At the same time, long-standing public concern over the environmental effects of logging practices, and demands to protect old-growth forests, erupted in intense controversy over timber harvesting on federallymanaged forest lands in the Pacific Northwest, the region where the majority of western timber was produced. The conflict resulted in a series of lawsuits in the late 1980s and early 1990s that effectively halted federal timber harvest in the Pacific Northwest, and led to development of the Northwest Forest Plan (Thomas et al 2006). The effects of these political and economic shifts on timber production from national forests in the west are reflected in Fig.…”

Section: Background To the Northwest Forest Plan Casementioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the past 15 years federal forest management policy in the western USA has shifted from emphasizing sustained-yield timber production to focusing on biodiversity conservation and the protection of endangered species (Thomas et al 2006). This shift has meant a major drop in the volume of timber harvested on federally-managed forest lands.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forest Management Policy, Amenity Migration, and Community Well-Being in the American West: Reflections from the Northwest Forest Plan

2008

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This paper examines the relation between public land management policy, amenity migration, and socioeconomic well-being using the case of the Northwest Forest Plan-a forest management policy that caused 11.6 million acres of federal land in the US Pacific Northwest to be reallocated from commodity production to biodiversity services. Our analysis focuses on three propositions implicit in much of the amenity migration literature in the USA: land management policies that reduce commodity production and/or increase environmental protection (1) improve the natural amenity values of public lands; (2) increase amenity migration to communities near public lands; and (3) stimulate economic development and increase socioeconomic well-being in these communities. Our findings indicate that all three propositions are problematic and demonstrate the importance of community-scale analysis for understanding the relation between land management policies, amenity migration, and community well-being. We discuss the implications of our findings for public land management and rural community development.

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Section: Background To the Northwest Forest Plan Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest Management Policy, Amenity Migration, and Community Well-Being in the American West: Reflections from the Northwest Forest Plan

2008

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“…The US federal NWFP, initiated in 1994, was among the first efforts globally to integrate multiple conservation goals into forest planning at broad spatial scales (USDA & USDI, 1994; Thomas et al, 2006). The Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina, henceforth 'the owl') was listed in 1990 as a threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act due to declining population trends related to the loss of older coniferous forest habitat to timber harvest (Noon & Blakesley, 2006).…”

Section: The Northwest Forest Plan (Nwfp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study area was based on the extent of the NWFP, which stretches from the Cascade Range to the Pacific Ocean in Washington and Oregon, and covers portions of northwestern California (Thomas et al, 2006) (Fig. 1).…”

Section: Species Distribution and Environmental Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing resiliency of reserve networks to climate change: multispecies conservation planning in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Carroll

Dunk

Moilanen

2010

Global Change Biology

198

186

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The effectiveness of a system of reserves may be compromised under climate change as species' habitat shifts to nonreserved areas, a problem that may be compounded when well-studied vertebrate species are used as conservation umbrellas for other taxa. The Northwest Forest Plan was among the first efforts to integrate conservation of wideranging focal species and localized endemics into regional conservation planning. We evaluated how effectively the plan's focal species, the Northern Spotted Owl, acts as an umbrella for localized species under current and projected future climates and how the regional system of reserves can be made more resilient to climate change. We used the program MAXENT to develop distribution models integrating climate data with vegetation variables for the owl and 130 localized species. We used the program ZONATION to identify a system of areas that efficiently captures habitat for both the owl and localized species and prioritizes refugial areas of climatic and topographic heterogeneity where current and future habitat for dispersal-limited species is in proximity. We projected future species' distributions based on an ensemble of contrasting climate models, and incorporating uncertainty between alternate climate projections into the prioritization process. Reserve solutions based on the owl overlap areas of high localized-species richness but poorly capture core areas of localized species' distribution. Congruence between priority areas across taxa increases when refugial areas are prioritized. Although corearea selection strategies can potentially increase the conservation value and resilience of regional reserve systems, they accentuate contrasts in priority areas between species and over time and should be combined with a broadened taxonomic scope and increased attention to potential effects of climate change. Our results suggest that systems of fixed reserves designed for resilience can increase the likelihood of retaining the biological diversity of forest ecosystems under climate change.

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“…Over the last decade, managers and policy makers have become increasingly concerned about high-severity fire and reduced timber harvesting in NWFP dry forests (e.g., Spies et al 2006, Power 2006, Thomas et al 2006, Ager et al 2007, USFWS 2011. Forest thinning has been viewed as a solution for controlling fires in dry forests throughout western North America Skinner 2005, Stephens andRuth 2005) and commercial criteria have been included to pursue timber harvest goals Franklin 2009, Franklin andJohnson 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Fire and Commercial Thinning on Future Habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl

Odion¹,

Hanson²,

DellaSala³

et al. 2014

TOORTHJ

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Abstract:The Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) is an emblematic, threatened raptor associated with dense, late-successional forests in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Concerns over high-severity fire and reduced timber harvesting have led to programs to commercially thin forests, and this may occur within habitat designated as "critical" for spotted owls. However, thinning is only allowed under the U.S. Government spotted owl guidelines if the long-term benefits clearly outweigh adverse impacts. This possibility remains uncertain. Adverse impacts from commercial thinning may be caused by removal of key habitat elements and creation of forests that are more open than those likely to be occupied by spotted owls. Benefits of thinning may accrue through reduction in high-severity fire, yet whether the firereduction benefits accrue faster than the adverse impacts of reduced late-successional habitat from thinning remains an untested hypothesis. We found that rotations of severe fire (the time required for high-severity fire to burn an area equal to the area of interest once) in spotted owl habitat since 1996, the earliest date we could use, were 362 and 913 years for the two regions of interest: the Klamath and dry Cascades. Using empirical data, we calculated the future amount of spotted owl habitat that may be maintained with these rates of high-severity fire and ongoing forest regrowth rates with and without commercial thinning. Over 40 years, habitat loss would be far greater than with no thinning because, under a "best case" scenario, thinning reduced 3.4 and 6.0 times more dense, late-successional forest than it prevented from burning in high-severity fire in the Klamath and dry Cascades, respectively. Even if rates of fire increase substantially, the requirement that the long-term benefits of commercial thinning clearly outweigh adverse impacts is not attainable with commercial thinning in spotted owl habitat. It is also becoming increasingly recognized that exclusion of high-severity fire may not benefit spotted owls in areas where owls evolved with reoccurring fires in the landscape.

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The Northwest Forest Plan: Origins, Components, Implementation Experience, and Suggestions for Change

Cited by 155 publications

References 12 publications

Forest Management Policy, Amenity Migration, and Community Well-Being in the American West: Reflections from the Northwest Forest Plan

Forest Management Policy, Amenity Migration, and Community Well-Being in the American West: Reflections from the Northwest Forest Plan

Optimizing resiliency of reserve networks to climate change: multispecies conservation planning in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Effects of Fire and Commercial Thinning on Future Habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl

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