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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2020
State moves forward on forest transfer
By MONICA SAMAYOA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
The Oregon State Land
Board voted unanimously
on Tuesday to move ahead
with the transfer of owner-
ship of the Elliott State For-
est to Oregon State Univer-
sity while acknowledging
that more work is needed
before the transfer could be
fi nalized.
The 80,000-acre for-
est in southwest Oregon is
inching closer to becoming
what backers say will be a
world-renowned
research
forest, providing opportuni-
ties for scientifi c research to
inform future decisions for
better forest management.
The plan also calls for pub-
lic access and future tim-
ber harvesting. The transfer
will also decouple the forest
from the Common School
Fund, which relies on reve-
nue from the sale of timber
on state forests, among other
resources, to help pay for
public education in Oregon.
The two-year collabora-
tive process between Oregon
State and the Oregon Depart-
ment of State Lands also
included a 17-member advi-
sory committee to provide
input from various different
perspectives and industries.
The State Land Board
is composed of Gov. Kate
Brown, Secretary of State
Bev Clarno and State Trea-
Oregon Department of Forestry
The Elliott State Forest in southwest Oregon is inching closer to becoming what backers say will be a world-renowned research
forest, providing opportunities for scientifi c research to inform future decisions for better forest management.
surer Tobias Read. During
Tuesday’s meeting Brown,
along with Clarno and Read,
praised the work done to
draft the proposal and nego-
tiate a way forward, despite
competing interests around
conservation,
logging,
research and public access
for hunting and other forms
of recreation.
“Instead of crisis and
chaos, we are moving
towards a collective voice of
collaboration,” Brown said.
But she said moving this
plan along doesn’t mean
it’s a done deal. More work
needs to be done in the next
two years before coming to a
fi nal decision, Brown said.
Some of the topics that
still need to be resolved
include making sure the
plan is centered on climate
change, establishing a wild-
life habitat conservation plan,
addressing the projected
$121 million loss of revenue
to schools that would result
from decoupling the Elliott
from the Common School
Fund and diversifying the
range of experts involved.
“I think the work will be
much better informed if the
entirety of the university is
brought into this conversa-
tion,” Brown said in a veiled
reference to the abundance
of criticism raised around
the role of Oregon State’s
forestry college in shaping
the proposal and managing
the forest moving forward.
“It makes for a more com-
prehensive and collective
approach.”
The state received more
than 1,700 comments and
feedback — including
numerous requests to cre-
ate an independent over-
sight body selected by the
state or other non-Oregon
State entity to ensure public
accountability and transpar-
ency in management. Com-
ments from the public also
suggest increasing the range
of experts moving forward.
Tom DeLuca, dean of the
College of Forestry at Ore-
gon State, said efforts are
being made to have a broad
representation from the uni-
versity on the Elliott State
Research Forest proposal.
For example, he said mov-
ing forward the proposal
would include experts from
the College of Agriculture,
College of Science and Lib-
eral Arts.
“I think that most do not
recognize that the college
faculty that created the pro-
posal was a collection of
professors from an array of
disciplines including soil sci-
ence, hydrology, ecology,
wildlife biology, social sci-
ence, economics, policy,”
he said. “There seems to be
a perception that the college
is just foresters and forest
engineers.”
DeLuca said the College
of Forestry will continue to
work on the proposal and
collaborate with the Depart-
ment of State Lands, stake-
holders and the public to
fi nalize the plan and come
up with a forest management
plan.
Sunfl ower sea stars critically endangered
By MONICA SAMAYOA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
One of the largest sea
star species in the world was
listed as critically endangered
on Thursday after a global
study shows the species pop-
ulation has been decimated
by a marine epidemic.
The sunfl ower sea star,
once abundant in marine
waters from Alaska to Baja
California in Mexico, is on
the brink of extinction along
the West Coast waters in the
United States after a marine
wildlife epidemic event
referred to as the sea star
wasting syndrome began in
2013. The wasting syndrome,
which essentially melts away
the sea star, is the result of a
pathogen that affected many
different species but affected
the sunfl ower sea star the
most.
An increase in ocean tem-
peratures during 2014 to 2016
that resulted in a phenom-
enon known as “the blob”
also played a role in the spe-
cies’ declining population
and have been struggling to
recover ever since. This led
to an increase in sea urchins
along the West Coast and a
decrease in kelp.
Oregon State Univer-
sity, along with The Nature
Conservancy and dozens of
conservation groups, led a
groundbreaking study that
found 90.6% of the species
population has been wiped
out and estimated as many
as 5.75 billion animals died
from the disease since the die-
off began. This has led the
International Union for Con-
servation of Nature to list the
sunfl ower sea star (Pycnopo-
dia helianthoides) as critically
endangered.
The study used more than
61,000 surveys from 31 data-
sets and showed no signs of
the population’s recovery in
any region it is known to be
located since the outbreak
began.
Walter Heady, a scien-
Photos by Steve Lonhart
ABOVE: A barren kelp forest off the coast of Carmel in California with hundreds of sea urchins.
RIGHT: A baby sunfl ower sea star near Carmel in 2014.
tist with The Nature Conser-
vancy, said having interna-
tional recognition through
the International Union for
Conservation of Nature of
the dramatic loss of this spe-
cies will allow for the appro-
priate research and conserva-
tion actions needed to aid its
recovery.
“IUCN really provides a
foundation for that conserva-
tion effort for sunfl ower sea
stars,” he said. “It provides
a foundation of scientifi c
knowledge to inform data
gaps, as well as potential con-
servation pathways to really
provide the foundation and
provide motivation and direc-
tion for current and future sci-
entifi c research and conserva-
tion efforts.”
The international union’s
Red List of Threatened Spe-
cies lists species in one of
eight categories of threat
based on certain criteria like
population trend, size and
range.
Heady said the dramatic
die-off of this species in its
known geographic range is
related to the changing con-
ditions due to climate change.
“What that means is this
important marine species
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and this important predator is
missing from the many eco-
systems in which it is found,”
Heady said. “What that means
for California and Oregon is,
we’ve also observed some
dramatic losses of our kelps
in the past few years as well.”
Sunfl ower sea stars play a
vital role in helping to main-
tain kelp forests, which in
return supply habitats for
marine life and also help in
sequestering carbon. The
declining population for the
sunfl ower sea star and vul-
nerability of kelp forests have
caused a signifi cant increase
of purple urchins along the
West Coast.
Sarah Gravem, a research
associate at Oregon State
University and lead analysis
author, said the past few years
is what she calls a perfect
storm of ecosystem destruc-
tion that fi rst started off with
the sea star wasting in 2013.
Then a year later the marine
heatwave came through and
the increase of sea urchins.
“Between the sea stars
being gone, the urchins
increasing and having lots
of babies, and the kelp being
killed, that’s left the situation
where we have just urchins
everywhere,” she said.
Gravem said now that the
species has been listed as crit-
ically endangered, it gives
researchers and conserva-
tion groups an opportunity to
develop a roadmap to begin to
recover the species.
Some ideas to help the
species recover include relo-
cating the sunfl ower sea star,
collecting sea urchins off the
reef and relocating them or
replanting kelp along the West
Coast to help them restore.
Another idea that would
be a fi rst of its kind for the
species would be a captive
rearing effort.
“This effort really high-
lights the importance of sci-
ence to inform conservation
and sound management deci-
sions,” she said.
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