Since 2004, the people who live and work in Ashland - and depend on a healthy forest for clean water - have been working together to coordinate a mangement plan that will dictate the future conditions of the Ashland watershed and its forest.  Citizens, community leaders and the U.S. Forest Service all agree on the key objectives of a watershed forest management plan: reduce the risk of large-scale wildfire; help large, old trees survive fire, insects and disease; restore a healthy forest ecosystem; and uphold the critical values of our watershed - to provide clean drinking water, recreation opportunties and wildlife habitat.

 

The mark of a healthy forest is its ability to recover from disturbance. Such forests are resilient to drought, disease or fire. Our local, forests are adapted to frequent fire, among other disturbances. The large pines, with their thick bark, are scarred, but can survive repeated fires. However, more recently these dry, open forests have grown dense with young Douglas-fir, Pacific madrone and white fir as a result of fire suppression. Now, if a fire burns, these large, older “legacy trees” are prone to succumb, as an uncharacteristically severe wildfire boils up through the dense undergrowth and into the canopy. They also must compete for water and nutrients with the dense young growth, weakening the older trees and increasing their vulnerability to insect damage and disease. The effects of these changing forest conditions can be seen in a comparison of aerial photos.

 

In 2004, the City of Ashland, local citizens and forest conservation groups collaborated to develop a Community Wildfire Protection Plan or CWPP that included a forest restoration plan. In 2009, the Forest Service used the CWPP to develop a Record of Decision for managing the national forest lands that comprise our watershed. This is the Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project, and it guides where and how to thin trees and brush on 7,600 acres within the watershed, in an effort to create a more resilient and sustainable forest. The plan includes thinning smaller trees, reducing flammable fuels and conducting controlled burns in an attempt to replicate the natural successional processes.  The plan also prioritizes saving the largest trees and preserving habitat for wildlife dependent on older forests, and will ensure water quality by preserving stream-side habitat, and protecting unstable slopes and erodible soils. The resulting landscape will keep our communities safer from the threat of wildfire.

 

Multi-Party Monitoring

The people of Ashland are very interested in how their plan for forest resiliency and safety is implemented on the ground. To meet that need, local stakeholders are working closely with the Forest Service to monitor each step of the process. A multi-party monitoring project will help ensure that plans are followed, and that measurable results are used to make any necessary adjustments to the management actions along the way. A generous grant from the National Forest Foundation has supported the monitoring project.

 

At an initial workshop, a diverse group of 20 technical stakeholders advocated for the development of a comprehensive, long-term - and fundable - monitoring plan. To ensure transparency and accessibility, the group called for a science-based delivery system, and for placing data, photos and interpretation on a user-friendly website.

 

To begin the process, the group recommended developing demonstration areas in the field to inform discussion and facilite the collection of additional information about the historical conditions of these forests. To answer what should be monitored, the group proposed the following as top indicators of forest health: water quality, large tree preservation and survival, and retention of old-growth forest. They also suggested using the recovery responses of understory grasses and wildflowers as well as bird surveys as indicators of forest health. A plan to implement these activites is in progress.