Applegater Winter 2015
What we heard at the
Applegate AMA public meeting
BY DON BOUCHER
The US Forest Service (USFS) and
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
would like to thank those who attended
the September 2, 2015, public meeting to
discuss forest resiliency in the Applegate
Adaptive Management Area (AMA).
More importantly, we would like to let
those who attended know how much we
appreciate your continued passion and
enthusiasm to stay involved with the
management of
these important
public lands.
It was a great
opportunity
for the agencies
to
share
information
regarding
new efforts to
prioritize forest
resiliency and
fuels treatments
At the September 2 public in the AMA and
meeting, Nikola Smith, to hear ideas,
US Forest Service concerns, and
ecosystem services questions. The
specialist, discusses
group breakout
how benefits provided
s e s s i o n s
by nature can be part
of designing desired generated a lot
outcomes in the of great ideas
planning process. and comments.
Following is a recap of some of
the issues we heard at the meeting:
• Frustration with the length and
amount of the planning process that has
occurred in the AMA, and a strong desire
for us to get more work done on the
ground in alignment with the Applegate
Adaptive Management Area Guide.
• A strong desire for the public to play a
more active role during implementation.
• High importance placed on the use of
an integrated approach and the leveraging
of existing work and knowledge.
• Frustration in long-term participants
with the frequency of agency turnover.
• Concern that all interested parties will
have a voice.
• Concern regarding the commitment
of the agencies to follow through with
the AMA vision.
In light of the ongoing drought in
southwest Oregon, anticipated climate
change, and the noticeable increase in fire
size and severity throughout the Pacific
Northwest, both USFS and the BLM
are in agreement that there is a need to
rejuvenate the spirit of the AMA that
brought so much energy to earlier efforts
to manage for resilient landscapes across
boundaries.
The goal for this AMA planning
effort is to develop an integrated
Applegate Adaptive Management
planning: Where do we go from here?
BY DON BOUCHER
The question when faced with a
large task is always “Where do we begin?”
As the US Forest Service (USFS) and the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
learned from our public meeting in
September, there is frustration within the
Applegate community with the length
and amount of planning process that
has occurred in the Applegate Adaptive
Management Area (AMA), and a strong
desire for agencies to get more work
done on the ground that is in alignment
with the AMA Guide. The challenge is
developing the long-term strategy for
the AMA and initiating needed, and in
some cases overdue, restoration work
within the AMA. To accomplish this,
we envision a parallel effort where we
develop the long-term strategy (where
and how to implement restoration across
the AMA), as we also begin to implement
needed restoration work.
As shared in our AMA public
meeting article on this page, the goal for
this AMA planning effort is to develop
an integrated strategy for the Applegate
AMA that incorporates an all-lands
approach to address landscape resilience
to disturbance and climate change and
utilizes collaboratively developed projects
that recognize the connection between
ecological conditions and a sustainable
flow of goods and services.
To achieve this overarching
goal, we plan to work with interested
individuals to collaboratively develop this
long-term strategy. This strategy would
build on the 1998 Applegate AMA
Guide that identified two primary goals.
We think these goals are still relevant
today. These goals are (1) achieve healthy,
diverse, and functioning ecosystems that
are sustainable over time, and (2) create
adaptive organizations.
This strategy will help guide future
actions as we move toward restoring
the AMA to a more resilient condition.
There are few areas in the AMA that
do not currently require some level of
restoration. The AMA interdisciplinary
planning team (IDT) of the USFS and
BLM resource specialists identified a
set of criteria that was used to select a
starting point. The following criteria were
used by the IDT:
Cross-boundary treatment
opportunities. This criterion prioritizes
areas where there are opportunities to
enact treatments across administrative
boundaries. This was weighted toward
areas where the USFS and the BLM
could potentially treat across boundaries.
This criterion also considered adjacency
to private lands, though it must be noted
that these opportunities are at the sole
discretion of the landowner.
Ecological restoration of pine
and oak ecosystems. This emphasizes
areas where pine and/or oak ecosystems
are in need of restoration, primarily due
to encroachment by conifers.
Opportunities for treatment of
mid-closed seral state stands. Based on
analysis by the Southern Oregon Forest
Restoration Collaborative (SOFRC),
this stand condition is one of the higher
priorities to treat and is the condition
that is most abundant throughout most
of southwest Oregon.
Restoration opportunities on ridges
19
strategy for the Applegate AMA that
incorporates an all-lands approach
to address landscape resilience to
disturbance and climate change and
utilizes collaboratively developed projects
that recognize the connection between
ecological conditions and a sustainable
flow of goods and services.
To address some of the concerns we
heard, the agencies plan to solicit input
from interested citizens to help in the
development of a long-term strategy for
implementation in the Applegate AMA.
This strategy would build off the 1998
Applegate AMA Guide that identified
two primary goals. We think these goals
are still relevant today.
Goal 1: Achieve healthy, diverse,
and functioning ecosystems that are
sustainable over time, in order to foster
healthy social and economic systems.
We want to:
• Understand the relationships between
sustainable resources and sustainable
economies (supporting sustainable
communities).
• Develop clear criteria and indicators
of sustainability reflecting shared values,
and monitor measurable criteria over
time.
• Enhance the relationship of agencies
to the communities adjacent to the
AMA. We want to create a climate of
trust and cooperation between agencies
and private citizens.
• Contribute to the economic well-
being of communities where possible.
Goal 2: Create adaptive
organizations. The BLM and USFS
are responsible for management of the
Applegate AMA and want to help create
a learning environment that is accessible
and responsive. We want to:
• Improve the capacity for local, public
problem-solving across boundaries.
• Gain understanding, cooperation,
and mutual respect among the federal
agencies and between agencies and
citizens.
• Use resources efficiently.
• Apply ecological principles.
• Use adaptive management principles
of testing, monitoring, and learning, and
share this learning with all partners.
• Share knowledge freely and effectively.
An important role of the agencies
in the AMA is to facilitate collaboration,
mutual learning, and innovation. While
many are concerned that this may be
difficult to achieve, particularly with
changes in Resource Management Plans
and land allocations, the AMA is really
about how we communicate and work
together to find common ground, resolve
differences, and work toward successful
outcomes. We have the ability as agency
and community members to create and
maintain an atmosphere of collaboration
and learning.
Don Boucher
541-899-3840
Applegate AMA Team Leader
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest
dboucher@fs.fed.us
and warm mid-slopes. Ridges and warm
mid-slope settings are a strategic place to
enact fuels treatments.
Fire risk to communities from large
and local fires. This criterion looked at
areas at high risk from wildfire and is
based on extensive fire-risk modeling
completed by the SOFRC.
Following a review of these
criteria and working through a mapping
exercise utilizing spatial geographic
information, the Upper Applegate
watershed was selected as the initial
planning area. This 52,300-acre planning
area includes the Beaver Creek, Palmer
Creek, and Star Gulch Creek drainages
along the main stem of the Applegate
River north of Applegate Lake. The
area provides a great opportunity
for coordinated cross-jurisdictional
management in the Applegate AMA.
On both USFS and the BLM lands,
there are project areas that have a current
decision document where limited work
is currently in progress. Work can be
accomplished and used as an example as
we begin a project planning process on
the Upper Applegate watershed.
The next steps in this process
are to begin to understand the planning
area and collaboratively develop goals and
objectives specific to the watershed. As
we discussed in the meeting last month,
we want to provide an opportunity
to engage as we determine those goals
and objectives and ultimately develop
a project proposal or multiple project
proposals.
Under the overarching goals
described in the Applegate AMA Guide,
the following draft objectives were
identified by the IDT for the Upper
Applegate Planning Area:
• Reduce risk to communities and other
developed areas from uncharacteristic
wildland fire.
• Restore landscapes to more resilient
conditions.
• Maintain watershed health, including
water and site productivity.
• Mitigate stand conditions that
contribute to insect and disease outbreaks.
• Develop and maintain complex forest
habitats.
• Maintain or improve big game winter
range habitat conditions.
• Maintain a sustainable flow of goods
and services.
• Maintain stream flows for anadromous
fish populations and clean water.
The objectives listed above need
much more refinement and specificity,
but they are the starting point. We use the
words “collaborate” or “collaboratively
developed” often when we discuss work
in the Applegate. Those words can mean
different things to different people based
on their own observations, experiences,
or expectations. What those words
mean to us is that we work side by side
with interested participants to develop
objectives and design projects and more
importantly monitor those projects to
see if we did what we said we were going
to do and whether we get the results we
expected.
By the time this issue of the
Applegater is published we will have had
a public field trip on Saturday, November
7, to discuss examples of restoration,
what we learned from the work, and what
lessons can be applied to future work. In
the Adaptive Management Area, we only
fail if we fail to learn.
We hope to plan more trips as
we continue engaging with residents
and interested participants. If you
have questions or would like more
information, contact me at the phone
number or email address below.
Don Boucher • 541-899-3840
dboucher@fs.fed.us