S. 2593 - The Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2008
Linked below are suggested amendments to S. 2593, the Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2008 and an explanatory letter. These documents were crafted by members of the Western Institute for Study of the Environment.
Suggested Amendments [here]
Explanatory letter [here]
The Jim’s Creek Savanna Restoration Project
Stand Diagnosis of Treatment Needs, Silvicultural Prescription, and Silvics Background Paper (Effects Analysis) — Jim’s Creek Savanna Restoration Project
by Tim Bailey, Middle Fork Ranger District, Willamette National Forest, August, 2005
Full text [here] (755KB)
Selected excerpts and some thoughts by Mike Dubrasich
Two hundred years ago the upper reaches of the Willamette River were occupied by the Molalla Indians. They may have been relative newcomers; it is conjectured that before the 1700’s the Kalapuya Indians controlled that area. In any case, evidence suggests that human beings lived in the Willamette Valley and adjacent Oregon Cascades for thousands of years.
The evidence is an oak savanna that extends deep into the mountains, including along the Middle Fork of the Willamette River above Oakridge. Today remnant old oaks, open-grown old-growth ponderosa pines, and tarweed (Madia spp) fields can still be seen, although a thicket of Douglas-fir has invaded in the last 100 years.
In 1984 an anthropologist named Carol Winkler did her Masters thesis on the ancient savannas of the Middle Fork. Later she teamed up with an intrepid USFS forester/silviculturalist named Tim Bailey, and together they resolved to restore the savanna, fields, and open pine forest of the Willamette Molallas.
In 2002 they presented a paper, Restoring the Cultural Landscape At Jim’s Creek: Challenges to Preserving a Spirit of Place, at the 55th Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference, Eugene, Oregon. April 11-13, 2002.
