The Willamette National Forest’s Middle Fork Ranger District (MFRD) and the Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative (SWFC) worked together to develop the Rigdon Landscape Analysis. The project provides an important testing ground for strategies to renew key ecosystems and processes of dry mixed-conifer forests, including oak-pine grasslands with diverse indigenous floral understories, ungulates, monarch butterflies, bull trout, and salmon habitats, and low-severity fire regimes.
Funding from FFR and GNA enabled SWFC to engage researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) and the University of Oregon (UO) to investigate past and present processes of vegetation change. Reconstructions of historical fire frequency on the Rigdon Landscape revealed that over the past 400+ years some areas burned as frequently as every four years while higher-elevation stands often went hundreds of years without burning. Post-implementation monitoring of a 600-acre pilot project to promote Oregon white oak-ponderosa pine savanna through thinning, reseeding, and prescribed fire revealed key challenges of recovering savanna grasslands and releasing large legacy trees following fire exclusion and conversion to the forest. The results point to critical challenges that must be anticipated and faced when attempting to restore ecosystems with long histories of management by indigenous peoples with longstanding knowledge of land management for varied and diverse goals.
These findings are helping partners and the agency better implement restoration activities that lead to a more fire-resilient landscape. This session will include short presentations by the two lead researchers on opportunities and conundrums revealed by their investigations followed by a panel discussion with audience Q/A.
Panelists:
James Johnston, Oregon State University
Bart Johnson, University of Oregon
Molly Juillerat, USFS-Willamette NF, Middle Fork RD
Sarah Altemus-Pope, Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative
For updates: Subscribe here.
Click here for more information about the workshop series.