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ONRC Whitepapers

On This Page:

• Forest Policy: Ready for Renaissance
• Elk Populations
• Public Involvement Decision-making: Olympic Peninsula Wolf Reintroduction
• The Scientific Basis for Validation Monitoring of Salmon for Conservation and Restoration Plans
• Organizational Learning: Adaptive Management for Salmon Conservation Conference Presentations and Proceedings
• WRIA 20 Technical Assessment Level I Water Quality and Habitat
• Watershed Analysis on the Olympic Experimental State Forest: A Methodology Integrating GIS and Forest Inventory
  

Forest Policy: Ready for Renaissance

Project Description:

Forest policies are not just about the “best science”.  In fact, science-based policies, while promoted as rational, often crate gridlock and polarization among interests rather than harmony.  The best science will always be debatable, hopefully.  Further, many believe that enlightened, widely accepted forest policy will require a greater appreciation of social, cultural, economic, analytical, and ecological values.  Yet forest policies, often constrained by regulations, rarely seek to blend these diverse disciplines.  Failing this integration establishes them from the outset as incapable of achieving broad consensus.  The staleness of the debate begs for new ways of thinking.

While ecosystem management has been proposed as the progressive alternative to traditional commodity-based management with the ultimate goal to provide sustainability of non-timber as well as timber-commodity forest functions, the form of ecosystem management has been interpreted to include a wide range of alternatives.  These alternatives constitute diverging new paradigms from historical processes, including substantial changes to biodiversity, watershed protection, aesthetic values, carbon storage, wood products, economic activity, and social participation.  They seek and reflect different values for various segments of society.  The costs of producing them are also different among the management paradigms.  With limited resources, there are trade-offs among producing these goods and services resulting in choices both for policy makers and land managers.  Value assessments of the goods and services produced by any given alternative are necessary to determine which best serves the social welfare.  The best alternatives may include some features from different paradigms.

The critical issues that are both driving and constraining the creation of these new paradigms need to be better understood.  The goal of this project is to develop a better consensus on desirable outcomes and implementation approaches.  The conference and proceedings will be organized into 6 sections:

The Place and the People
Land, Ownership, and Uses
Diversity, Habitat, and the Future
The Policy Issues
How Values Are Measured
Cultivating New Ways of Thinking

Status:

The three-day conference was held at ONRC on September 17-19, 1996 for 48 participants. The conference included presentations and panel discussions that outlined basic concepts in the policy process, identified spatial scales of policy implications, and considered the economic, social, biological and long terms goals of forest policy in defining some alternatives for natural resource management. From conference presentations ONRC compiled 20 peer reviewed papers published in:

John M. Calhoun, Forest Policy: Ready for Renaissance, (Seattle, Institute of Forest Resources, Contribution No. 78, 1998)

The Journal of Forestry published a Perspective pieces entitled The Renaissance of Forest Policy by John Calhoun in the Vol. 95 No. 12 Dec, 1997 issue adapted from his address to the annual meeting of the Washington State SAF in April 1997.

Elk Populations

Executive Summary:

Magnificent herds of Roosevelt elk have long been associated with the Olympic Peninsula. The City of Forks, Washington and three Peninsula timber companies approached the Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) with concerns about Roosevelt elk on the Peninsula. Recognizing the environmental, economic, regulatory, and social consequences of the management of elk, they proposed to bring together those concerned about elk in order to define current and historic population trends, explore the relationships between landscape conditions and elk populations, and build relationships for constructive discussion of this issue in the future.

On the Peninsula, elk populations rose from an estimated 2,000 animals at the turn of the century to a conservative peak population estimate of 15,000 elk in the early 1980’s. Populations have declined since then to a current population estimate of 11,000. The two main influences on elk populations are production, including the quality and quantity of forage, and mortality. Herds in Olympic National Park live in an environment where these two factors are relatively stable. Populations there have remained steady since
1950. Elk populations outside the park have fluctuated greatly with a wider variety of mortality pressures and changing landscape conditions. Research indicates that in managed forests, elk extensively use areas 5-15 years after logging for grazing and areas 30 years after logging for calving.

Extensive research has been conducted to investigate relationships among elk abundance, landscape conditions and availability of forage. Recent research indicates that forest cover as thermal protection does not benefit elk in terms of energy expenditure or overall productivity, although forest cover may provide hiding protection. Research recommendations call for increased attention to elk forage as an indicator of productivity. It has been determined that elk browsing promotes the production of grasses and shrubs and enhances the accessibility and nutrient content of seasonal forages. Additional research projects are currently underway to further examine largescale habitat selection, mortality and movement patterns following disturbance, such as hunting and timber harvest.

Conference participants expressed interest in continuing discussion among all stakeholders about Olympic Peninsula elk. Defining desired elk population levels and elk management approaches were common conference themes. Conference participants also expressed interest in further investigating the quality and quantity of forage in different forest stand types and examining silviculture practices that encourage high-quality elk forage. Participants expressed interest in using and building on the presentations and discussions of Olympic Natural Resources Center’s elk conference. Participants considered education and coordination essential to applying the knowledge gained in this conference.

Conference Proceedings:

Status of Elk Populations on the Olympic Peninsula - 2001

Public Involvement Decision-making: Olympic Peninsula Wolf Reintroduction

Project Description:

In 1998, Congress allocated $350,000 to study the biological and ecological feasibility of wolf reintroduction and to conduct a public involvement process to identify and describe public issues and concerns about returning wolves to the Olympic National Park. Of the total allocation, Congress appropriated $50,000 to the Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) at the behest of Congressman Dicks and Senator Slade Gorton, to engage those who would be affected by the reintroduction. The appropriation required the public involvement process to "…address thoroughly the potential impacts of wolves on the people and communities that would be directly affected…"  ONRC entered into a contract with the Battelle Seattle Research Center and Elway Research, Inc. of Seattle to assist with involving the public in considering wolf reintroduction.

ONRC, Battelle, and Elway Research interviewed representatives about wolf reintroduction from a range of points of view, including tourism, logging, economic development, environmental organizations, recreational clubs, agriculture and local government.  From records of these interviews, ONRC, Battelle, and Elway Research extracted specific comments that became the basis for statements in the three electronic town meetings using the Electronic Group Interaction System (EGIS). Town meetings were held in the communities of Shelton, Hoquiam, and Forks, Washington, which triangulate the Olympic National Park.  Budget constraints precluded other logical sites.

Whitepaper:

Should Wolves be Reintroduced into Olympic National Park and Surrounding Lands? - 1998

The Electronic Town Meeting Findings:

Public Involvement in Decision-Making about Controversial Natural Resource Management Issues - 1999

The Scientific Basis for Validation Monitoring of Salmon for Conservation and Restoration Plans

Executive Summary:

With large amounts of time, effort and money spent to improve the status of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, the question naturally arises - what must be measured to learn which actions are effective and which are not. The purpose of validation monitoring, with respect to salmon, is to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the implementation and observed effects of management actions. The challenge associated with this type of monitoring is to establish a measurement approach in which management actions of a conservation plan can be related to responses by salmon, so that plausible relationships between habitat and populations can be assessed.

The University of Washington, Olympic Natural Resources Center convened the Validation Monitoring Panel to define the appropriate measurement approach. The panel was co-chaired by David Peterson, Professor/Unit Leader, US Geological Survey and Daniel Botkin, Research Professor, University of California. The other panel member were selected to provide diversity among disciplines and institutions, and to include both specialists in the study and management of salmon in the Pacific Northwest and those with additional relevant expertise from outside the region. The panel has concluded that if the goal is to increase the number of salmon (total or a specific stock), then the variable of interest must be the number of fish. Therefore, counting fish through the process of validation monitoring is the only way that a link between cause and effect can be confirmed quantitatively.

The primary question addressed in this report is: If actions are taken in an attempt to improve the status of salmon populations (or a specific stock of salmon), what measurements are necessary, feasible, and practical to determine whether the actions are successful?

Project description:

ONRC is in a unique position to organize a working group to develop adult escapement estimation methods appropriate for validation monitoring. The Validation Monitoring Panel Report released in December 2000 was successful in emphasizing the importance of establishing and implementing these monitoring plans in response to public interest and investment in salmon conservation. The development of the tools necessary to carry out validation monitoring plans will be useful to all groups required or interested in understanding the effects of salmon conservation efforts through validation monitoring. Through our previous work with the Validation Monitoring Panel. Project Objectives:
(1) Consult with Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to determine areas of greatest need for scientific support for project design and analysis.
(2) Identify appropriate scholars or consultants in the various fields of expertise throughout North America.
(3) Invite and assemble these experts at ONRC for two days of workshop sessions with DNR project planner in order to develop the project design and analysis methods.
(4) Prepare recommendations for DNR’s validation monitoring program on the Clallam River.

Report of the Validation Monitoring Panel:

The Scientific Basis for Validation Monitoring of Salmon for Conservation and Restoration Plans - 2000

WRIAs in Washington State with Fish Counting Projects

Organizational Learning: Adaptive Management for Salmon Conservation Conference Presentations and Proceedings

Introduction:

Conservation of salmon drives many natural resource policies in the Pacific Northwest. Yet we have a limited understanding of how natural systems function across the broad landscapes traversed by salmon over their life cycle. Much remains to be learned about the complex systems that support salmon abundance. Intelligent design and validation monitoring of salmon conservation strategies is in its infancy. Clearly, successful conservation and restoration of salmon populations will require organizations to learn and adapt.

Adaptive management has been suggested as a way to apply intelligent, planned learning, redirecting strategies and actions of an organization toward policy objectives. Adaptive management has been  defined as a six step process: 1) determine management objective, e.g. improve the status of salmon populations, 2) design experiments, 3) apply the management actions intended to achieve the objective, 4) measure key variables, 5) compare responses with objectives, and 6) repeat the process, seeking continued improvement in achieving the management objectives.

Olympic Natural Resources Center assembled a multi-agency planning team to prepare a conference intended to explore questions about how organizations learn and to check the status of adaptive management programs in resource management and regulatory agencies in the Pacific Northwest. The planning team drew upon expertise from state and federal agencies in Oregon and Washington as well as from academic institutions and research labs. The team organized a two day conference which was held December 3-4, 2001 to explore three questions relevant to the issues at hand:

1. Are resource management and regulatory organizations actually prepared to learn and make intelligent choices?
   
2. Are there successful examples for natural resource organizations to follow?
   
3. What changes in organizations are needed to successfully learn and adapt?

This meeting built on a previous conference held in December 2000, sponsored by the U.W. Olympic Natural Resources Center, which focused on validation monitoring for salmon conservation plans. Validation monitoring represents the feedback from the environment on the effectiveness of management actions, a critical component of adaptive management. However, the message is only useful if someone is listening - if an organization is prepared to take the environment’s feedback and respond. This conference therefore builds logically on what was discussed in December 2000.

The specific objectives of the December 2001 conference were to:

• Fill part of a critical gap in our ability to successfully achieve public policy of restoring salmon habitat and populations in the Pacific Northwest,
• Provide resource management and regulatory organizations with actions and strategies that may improve current governmental and organizational efforts to conserve salmon,
• Help answer the question: “How can we best organize ourselves for using research and management experience to learn how to conserve salmon?”

The conference was organized into five sections:

1. Introduction and setting the stage with the keynote address
2. Organizational Learning: what do we know?
   
3. Adaptive Management: what does it require organizations to do?
   
4. How can we best organize to recover salmon?
   
5. A facilitated discussion to develop a list of common principles for organizations that can learn and adapt.

Speakers were asked to contribute to the process with 20-30 minute presentations and participate in panel question-and-answer sessions. From these presentations and discussions among those in the conference, a list of organizational characteristics was compiled.

Conference Proceedings:

Organizational Learning: Adaptive Management for Salmon Conservation - 2001

Presentations:

Institutional Responses to Environmental Change - William Clark, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

A Systems Approach to Organizational Learning - Steve Daniels, Western Rural Development Center, Utah State University, Logan UT

Organizing and Conducting Adaptive Management at a Regional Scale: Experiences from the Northwest Forest Plan - George Stankey, USDA Forest Service, Corvalis, OR

Science and Adaptive Management: Experiences from the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds - Logan Norris, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR

An Industry Perspective on Adaptive Management - Robert Bilby, Weyerhaeuser Company, Federal Way, WA

Successful Adaptive Management Organizations from the Perspective of a National Laboratory - Brian Boyle, Battelle Seattle Research Center

Energy Policy and Salmon Conservation - Larry Cassidy, Jr., Northwest Power Planning Council, Portland, OR

150 Years of Salmon Restoration: Assorted Truths - Robert Lackey, US Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, OR

WRIA 20 Technical Assessment Level I Water Quality and Habitat

Watershed Analysis on the Olympic Experimental State Forest: A Methodology Integrating GIS and Forest Inventory

Abstract:

Existing and new computer models were applied to automate a subset of assessments used in Watershed Analysis. The assessments addressed were Hydrologic Change, Road Sedimentation, Riparian Shade, and Riparian Large Woody Debris (LWD). Existing Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) GIS road, stream, forest stand, climate, and other data sources were used whenever possible in the models. DNR Forest Resources Inventory System (FRIS) data was used to represent forest conditions. New watersheds were delineated around Type 3 streams, and results for all assessments were analyzed at both the Type 3 and Watershed Administrative Unit (WAU) levels.

Results include:

• Hydrologic Change is not a significant issue in any Type 3 or WAU watershed in the OESF under Average storm conditions
  
• Road Sedimentation results in an average increase in sediment over background levels at the Type 3 watershed-level of 14.4% with Occasional Traffic, and 50.9% with Light Traffic
  
• 51 Type 3 watersheds were identified as potential priority watersheds for Road Sedimentation (more than 100% increase in sediment over background levels)
  
• Current riparian forests in the OESF allow an average of 27% of the potential insolation into the stream network (block 73% of the potential insolation)
  
• Current riparian forests in the OESF have an average expected LWD piece count of 291 trees per 1000 feet of stream
  
• In one case study comparing current riparian forest conditions with all riparian forests in an Old Forest condition, current forest conditions had a range of both higher and lower insolation levels than Old Forests, mostly similar to higher expected LWD pieces counts, and mostly lower expected LWD volume amounts

Final Report:

Watershed Analysis on the Olympic Experimental State Forest: A Methodology Integrating GIS and Forest Inventory - 2006