Episode 70: Community Forestry in the PNW

In the Woods: Community Forestry in the PNW

This transcript is generated by Ai and edited for accuracy, punctuation, and syntax.

The podcast episode from Oregon State University's Extension Service covers community forests in the Pacific Northwest and their role in the community-based conservation movement. Hosted by Jake Barker, the discussion features Daniel Wear from Sustainable Northwest. They explore the definition, goals, and management practices of community forests, emphasizing the significance of maintaining water quality, fire risk mitigation, and timber revenue through community-led initiatives. Key examples include the Arch Cape Community Forest and Montesano City Forest, showcasing varying structures and benefits. Funding challenges and sources are also discussed, along with the role of the Northwest Community Forest Coalition in supporting new and existing community forests. Daniel leads Sustainable Northwest's Community Forest Program which includes his facilitation of the Northwest Community Forest Coalition along with his direct support to communities in protecting their drinking water supplies through forest management. Daniel earned an MPA in Environmental Policy and Management from the University of Washington, with the goal of helping conservation non-profits connect communities to the resources needed for landscape protection. Daniel loves biking of all kinds, camping, and if possible, a combination of the two.

00:00 Introduction to In the Woods Podcast

00:32 Host Introduction and Episode Topic

01:19 Guest Introduction: Daniel Wear

04:31 Defining Community Forests

11:22 Examples of Community Forests

18:51 Watershed Management in Community Forests

27:12 Challenges and Opportunities in Community Forests

30:47 Public Access and Community Involvement

38:39 Funding and Support for Community Forests

44:47 Lightning Round and Conclusion

[00:00:00]

Introduction to In the Woods Podcast

[00:00:00] Lauren Grand: From the Oregon State University's Extension Service, you are listening to In the Woods with the Forestry and Natural Resources Program. This podcast brings the forest to listeners by sharing the stories and voices of forest scientists, land managers, and enthusiastic members of the public. Each episode, we will bring you research and science-based information that aims to offer some insight into what we know and are still learning about forest science and management.

Stick around to discover a new topic related to forests on each episode.

Host Introduction and Episode Topic

[00:00:32] Jake Barker: All right, so we are live and recording.

Thank you for joining us on another episode of In the Woods. My name is Jake Barker, Oregon State University, extension Forester and Associate Professor of Practice, and I will be your host for today's episode today. Today's episode is all about community forests in the Northwest with ties to the community-based conservation movement across the world.

Community forests in the United States pull together organizations, municipalities, and tribes [00:01:00] to steward nearby forest land for diverse goals like water quality, fire risk, and timber. No two community forests are the same. And today we will look at several different community forests across our region as they look different depending on their location and the goals that are set by the community.

Guest Introduction: Daniel Wear

[00:01:19] Jake Barker: Joining us on the podcast today is Daniel Wear. Daniel is Senior Forest Program Manager at Sustainable Northwest, where he leads the community forest program across the Pacific Northwest. As the facilitator of the Northwest Community Forest Coalition, he supports communities in protecting their drinking water supplies through forest management.

Daniel received his Master's of Public Administration from the University of Washington where he focused on connecting nonprofit conservation organizations with local communities to strengthen natural resource stewardship. So Daniel, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. We're really happy to have you here and we look forward to learning more about community [00:02:00] forests.

So first off, I wanted to ask if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and about your role at Sustainable Northwest.

[00:02:08] Daniel Wear: Hey, Jake. Yeah, I'm, I appreciate you inviting me on and giving me the opportunity to share more about myself and my work with Sustainable Northwest. Within the organization. I'm the senior Forest program manager of our private forest lands team. But the way our communications team likes to share that is I'm the community forest program lead.

So within this work, like you mentioned, I focus on supporting communities who are seeking forest management projects, specifically around helping them acquire and manage forest land with their goals in mind. What this looks like is direct engagement with communities who reach out to Sustainable Northwest requesting support and helping projects come, from the ideas phase of 'is it possible to buy and manage forest land for our goals' to the execution and implementation phase where they become forest land [00:03:00] owners and then implement the management that they see fit. Beyond this with Sustainable Northwest, like you mentioned, I facilitate the Northwest Community Forest Coalition. It's a network of around 300 community forest practitioners and forestry practitioners. And it contains upwards of 50 community forests ranging from Northern California Oregon, Washington, and into Idaho.

So that coalition is a great group that brings together these practitioners to share experiences, opportunities, and learn from one another.

[00:03:31] Jake Barker: Great. Where are you actually based?

[00:03:34] Daniel Wear: I am based out of Seattle and with Sustainable Northwest, our headquarters are located in Portland. But we've, as an organization, we've grown over the past a handful of years and have a number of staff in the state of Washington, as well as of course, based in Portland. And then we have a handful of staff that are remote in the communities that they're working in.

So one of the things I appreciate about Sustainable Northwest is that, while we're based in the urban centers of Portland and Seattle, we really make [00:04:00] an effort to show up in the communities that we work in. So well, yes, I'm based in Seattle, a lot of my job is traveling to the communities that I work to support, whether that's on the Oregon coast, on the Washington coast, or into the mountains central Washington.

We're really based all across the region and our work allows us to show up in person.

[00:04:18] Jake Barker: Fantastic. Yeah, and I'm sure the having virtual options as well helps you stay connected to those communities. So first off, what I wanted to start with is to provide some definitions for our listeners.

Defining Community Forests

[00:04:31] Jake Barker: So perhaps folks have already heard about community forests and community forestry, but off the cuff, I wanted to ask you to define community forests.

So for you, what is a community forest?

[00:04:43] Daniel Wear: That's a question that I get a lot and, my response always changes really. There's no one definition of a community forest, but the common ethos is that a community forest is a property that's owned and managed with community goals in [00:05:00] mind and beyond those goals, the benefits that come from the property get returned and reinvested back into the community.

So a community forest, it could be a 500 acre property and it could range to a 10,000 acre property. However it doesn't matter who the property owner truly is, it's the fact that the management process is community led. A lot of common priorities that we see with the community. Forest movement includes sustainable management for timber revenue.

It includes forest land management to achieve ecological goals, whether that's water availability, wildfire risk mitigation, or more public use goals. That includes recreational opportunities, educational use of a property, whether it's with school age children or with neighboring, adult, forest-landowners learning how to implement sustainable forestry practices back on their own properties. Or, whether it's looking at ownership and management of priority-view [00:06:00] sheds or protecting historical cultural resources on a property.

So while there's no one definition of managing of what a community forest is that common ethos, again, really comes back to community led forest management.

[00:06:13] Jake Barker: You touched on this already, but what are some of the organizations that you often work with or who might be involved in a community forest?

[00:06:22] Daniel Wear: So there are a number of different types of ownerships that can manage a community forest, whether it's a municipality, a city, a county, a water district, or a nonprofit organization, a land-trust self-identified 501c3 community forest, or a tribe.... Beyond that, the partners that are involved in community forests are community members, the users of the property.

Common other partners might include the neighboring recreation groups. It might include area educators, forest experts, engaged [00:07:00] community members, or ecological service providers. And what I mean by that is maybe the water district who is managing a community forest, they have staff that are participating in the community forest management planning and implementation process. Or maybe you have a community forest that's in a high risk fire area in the Eastern Cascades or in central Oregon. Those participants will be potential implementers of fire risk reduction practices. So they might not own the property, but their perspectives are valuable in the management planning and implementation in the process. So one thing I would add is that a number of community forests, especially in the past 15 years, 10 years, have really been increasing in including the perspective of area, tribes that maybe have cultural practices that historically have taken place on the community forests or are area land managers and neighboring land managers. So [00:08:00] over the past handful of years, we've seen a big increase in an effort to and elevating the voices of tribes in community forest management.

And that's something that we certainly hope to see continued in the future.

[00:08:11] Jake Barker: Does that include components of traditional ecological knowledge?

[00:08:16] Daniel Wear: Depending on the property and depending on the capacity of the tribes and the participants that are able to engage, community forest management, it is a burden, right? Bringing together a committee to make management recommendations. It's a quarterly meeting or a monthly meeting, and so depending on who's involved in that committee those perspectives will be shared.

And we've also seen that, especially in community forests that implement prescribed fire, there's been a reliance and learning values, and knowledge-sharing with area and adjacent tribes on how they've implemented prescribed fire on their neighboring landscapes as well.

[00:08:52] Jake Barker: Great. So something that I've been thinking about as we've prepared for this episode is as we [00:09:00] talk about this ownership structure and this governance structure, how would you compare a community forest to say a state or a city park?

[00:09:08] Daniel Wear: I would say community forests are notably different than parks, and that's an important thing to highlight. The ethos behind community forests and community forestry is around active forest management. I called out some of the benefits of community forest earlier, whether that is for sustained timber revenue- that's what we really think about when we think about active forest management- that could be a priority in some community forests. I don't think that's something that you really see in a state park or a city park or a national park. Beyond that, a community forest, if they're not managing for the sole purpose of timber revenue, they may still be managing for the priorities of increased water availability or maintaining habitat for priority species or preventing wildfire risk, or ensuring the [00:10:00] co-use of a space to be used for forest treatments, but also to be allowed for public use. So I think that's where it really differs. When someone comes forward and says, we want to establish a community forest, and they're seeking funding for a community forest, the goal of the project is if they're able to fundraise, to acquire the parcel and to implement community forest management, it's a one-time investment and then that property is self-sustaining and that the management that's coming off of the property, whether it's selective thinning whether it's small scale, clear cut harvests, or whether it's investment in the carbon markets or other ecological service markets. The goal is that once the property's in community ownership, it'll be able to generate enough revenue to have continued management and provide jobs to the local community, to local contractors.

And again, align with the goals that have been set by the community members [00:11:00] and community that's been engaged with the process.

[00:11:03] Jake Barker: That's super helpful to, to tease apart those different ownership structures and also funding structures as well to better clarify why a community forest is different than a park that relies on city or state dollars to fund work. So that's super helpful.

Examples of Community Forests

[00:11:22] Jake Barker: Obviously the next question is, can you give us a couple examples of community forests in our region?

[00:11:29] Daniel Wear: I'd love to. Like I said before, there are over 50 community forests in our region. There are countless examples that I could use but I'm gonna highlight two community forests that Sustainable Northwest ourselves have been engaged in over the past decade give or take. And these projects are two ends of the community forest management spectrum.

The first project I wanna highlight is the Arch Cape Community Forest. Arch Cape is a unincorporated [00:12:00] community in Southern Clatsop County, about an hour and 25 minutes from Portland on the Oregon coast. It's a community of, on a good year, 175 year round residents. But in the summers really feels a significant increase in population through tourism as well as an increase in demand for water availability for drinking water for water usage in the summer months. So in around 2017, the Water District Board, which is the governing body in the community, came together and identified that they understood the priority of maintaining a stable water supply. And they had the opportunity to acquire 1500 acres of forest land that is directly behind the community.

And this is a community that's. Along Highway 101 on the Oregon coast, approximately a mile from start to [00:13:00] stop, a two minute drive from one edge of the town to the other. So this Water district said we wanna own and manage as much of our drinking watershed as possible so that in the future if there's increased climate variability, we know that we will be able to manage our water supply to our residents and our visitors and ensure that they have a sustainable water supply. This project from 2017 to 2022 was a big push for fundraising to acquire the property, but then also to implement management planning and learn about what was truly in the forest because a number of residents came forward and said, yes, I've lived here for a generation, for two generations, but we don't often go up into the forests because it's been in private management. Or maybe the landowner in the eighties and nineties, it was easy to access and use the property, but it's had become more confusing as land had changed hands. [00:14:00] So the community was able to buy the property and now moving forward it's managed for the priority of maintaining a stable drinking water supply and all forest management forest treatments take place with that in mind.

So their goal is to maintain a strong, healthy road system so that there's no risk of landslides and road slides, especially during winter, the winter months where there's really heavy precipitation, especially on the coast. And if there's the opportunity for thinnings and harvests, the goal is always comes back to how does this affect the bottom line, which is availability of their community's drinking water. In the end that ended up being a 1,560 acre acquisition and is now managed and public use continues in its historical ways so folks can walk their dogs on the property in the fall months. Visitors come to hike and go hunting in the [00:15:00] area, and I believe it's in partnership with the neighboring landowner who's the area land trust above the community forest that there's agreed upon public use protocols. So that's the example of Arch Cape again on the Oregon coast. The other example I wanna talk about is the Montesano city Forest. Which is a property that's been in city ownership since the 1930s and in fact, it's home of the tree farm, the Warehouser tree Farm. This property came into city ownership, and over the past 80 years has grown with small partial acquisitions to 5,600 acres of forest land around which 4,000 acres are managed on ran sustainable timber harvest rotation.

The overarching goal of the "Monty" [Montesano] City Forest is to return revenues to the city to offset the public works costs. And [00:16:00] up until recently, no resident in Monty had to ever pay for their drinking water bill and had to pay for their water bill. And that's because of revenues coming off the property beyond this.

Yeah. Pretty cool. Beyond this, the City Forest it's adjacent to Lake Sylvia State Park in Montesano, and so there's a lot of public use that goes on at the state park and then up into the woods. So the property has, of course, countless miles of forest roads to access all the different landings that they use for management, but they also have I believe 23 miles of a trail system. One of the access points is that state park, but then there's also another access point through some of the forest roads. And so the city, of course, with their priority of timber revenue is also able to maintain 5,600 acres of public use space on the property. In the [00:17:00] fall, they open it up for hunting and so if you're ever on the property in the fall, make sure you're wearing, an orange hat, maybe a bright vest.

But then in the winter they've had, at least for the past four or five years, they've had an event called Run Forest Run, and it's a 50 K that takes place at the base of Lake Sylvia State Park, and runs all up through the trails, through the forest roads, through the system, and ends back at the State Park.

So that's a great example. The city's managing for multiple priorities. They're managing to truly be a resource for the community members, and it's a well-known resource in the community. Folks will go out on Sunset walks, they'll go out and a handful of community members have been able to get keys to access the property through some of the gate systems.

So while it's a predominantly a passive recreation area for biking, for hiking, for running, there are a handful of folks who can go out. Maybe they'll take their cars and they'll go foraging for mushrooms in the [00:18:00] fall. Maybe they'll go and have a picnic on one of the vista points that kind of looks back at the different volcanoes in the cascade range.

So it really is a pretty noteworthy property and has been able to be a benefit to the community since the 1930s. But really, with management being a priority consistently since about the eighties.

[00:18:18] Jake Barker: Wow. That was an incredible overview and I really liked this picture you painted of two very different forests one of which has been around for. Decades, one of which is relatively new, but both are providing this really key resource for the communities of high quality drinking water and beyond the other myriad qualities and resources that a community forest provides, such as recreation or hunting and whatnot.

Watershed Management in Community Forests

[00:18:51] Jake Barker: Can you just talk a little bit more about what does watershed management actually look like on these forests? In a past episode, I've spoken with someone [00:19:00] about more broadly watershed management and the inter relations with forestry, but I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about, from your perspective, what does that actually look like on the ground?

You've mentioned it a little bit, but just talk about some of the forestry approaches and maybe how they've changed over time.

[00:19:20] Daniel Wear: Yeah, certainly. I'll reference the Arch Cape project because that acquisition was for the sole purpose of drinking water and watershed management for their drinking water availability. We've seen an increase in interest and an increase in momentum and funding, specifically around community-led forest land acquisition along coastal forest lands commonly, that's because these coastal forests contain smaller, isolated drinking watersheds. A lot of the communities, and for those of you who have driven down Highway 1 0 1 [00:20:00] on the Oregon coast or on the Washington coast for that matter, you're passing a number of small communities where on one edge, the forest land is commonly owned by private industrial landowners, and within those forests are thousand acre, 2000 acre, isolated drinking watersheds. So what communities have come to understand and what they've seen as an increasing need is to have influence on the management within those watersheds, and whether it is through watershed acquisition or conversations with the landowner of adjusted forest harvest practices the underlying goal has commonly been to manage forest in drinking watersheds slightly different than the standard industrial management practices that are taking place in these coast ranges. The coast range is one of, if not the most productive area for [00:21:00] forest land, especially in the United States for sure. And across the globe. So being able to identify that , while forest management is a priority in the area, understanding that in these subsections, these really small 1000 acre, 2000 acre parcels, it could look different and it could still benefit the community for drinking water availability. Specifically, you're asking about what management looks like within the watersheds for drinking water supply. Commonly what we'll see is communities pursuing longer rotations or older aged forest stands within their watersheds to act as better sponge to store water later into summer months, and to also ensure that there's more resilience in the case of extended dry periods, which even though we're talking about the coast range [00:22:00] from July to September, or now we're seeing even into October, there really isn't that much precipitation coming into these watersheds.

So the more complex forest structure that these watersheds have, the more water availability there will be later into the dry season. But also we're having this conversation early December. Our whole region, but specifically the coast, has been inundated with rainfall and some areas are experiencing flooding.

Some areas will experience landslides, and making sure that for the streams that flow into the water intake facilities, the water is as clean as possible to reduce the amount of infrastructure needed for water filtration, for water treatment before it gets delivered to its residents. So to summarize, a lot of communities are seeking watershed structure that in the summer months increases water availability, and in the winter months [00:23:00] decreases turbidity and sedimentation coming into their water treatment plants.

[00:23:04] Jake Barker: So you have these two opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how a forest needs to be resilient depending on the precipitation conditions or the time of year. And right now we're seeing that test of the wet side of the spectrum of how resilient are these forests in terms of being able to absorb and mitigate the amount of sediment that's going into the streams and then into the drinking water supply.

[00:23:31] Daniel Wear: And one thing I will say is that in the past handful of years, I think 2021, 2022, Oregon State implemented the Private Forest Accords, which extended buffers across all forest lands, but specifically in fish bearing streams, seasonal, and perennial streams. When we're thinking about these drinking watersheds, some of them are not in fish bearing streams, and so just [00:24:00] changing the mindset of ' this watershed is a priority because it has fish in it' to 'this watershed is a priority because it supplies drinking water' , in the conversations that I'm having, that the communities are having with the timberland owners in the area, they're aware of it, they've been great partners, and understanding for some landowners it might not make sense to continue to manage forest land in watersheds as a part of their ownership block. And that's where we think there's momentum moving forward is if we have communities on one hand saying 'we want control of our watershed and input on the management of our watershed' and landowners saying 'if we're gonna have to manage a property so significantly different to align with your goals', financially and politically it might make sense for both parties to move towards a fee simple sale of a property, allowing the community to implement the management as it [00:25:00] see fits and helping get rid of a headache parcel of a larger forest ownership.

[00:25:06] Jake Barker: Another similarity I noticed between Arch Cape and Montesano is that they are adjacent to other public lands, whether it's a park or a conservation owned land trust property. Do you often think about creating continuity with other public lands, or how does that come up in your work?

[00:25:32] Daniel Wear: I think that with our work at Sustainable Northwest, we're really interested in supporting a community during, and after they've identified what their priority parcel for community forest management is. When the communities themselves are going forward and saying " if we want to establish a community forest, here's where we propose", commonly, those will be the more romantic parcels.

The parcels [00:26:00] that maybe in the past 30 years informal trail system has been developed with the current landowner. Or parcels that they might be the community view shed where you take a two mile hike into the woods and then you're, for the Arch Cape example, you're looking at the Pacific Ocean and it's an incredible restorative experience.

We've also seen properties in Eastern Oregon. The East Moraine Community Forest is an example where the community came together and said, 'we wanna move towards establishing a community forest. What parcel should we look at?' And the entire community came together and said 'let's acquire the East Moraine property.'

It is adjacent to lake Wawa, adjacent to the Eagle Cap Wilderness Forest Service land, and so as a whole the reason that community forests commonly are adjacent to other state [00:27:00] parks, other conserved lands public national forest land, state forest land is because there's already that working relationship of the land.

Challenges and Opportunities in Community Forests

[00:27:12] Jake Barker: What are some of the challenges that community forests face when trying to realize their vision?

[00:27:17] Daniel Wear: That's a good question. There's no shortage of challenges in forest management as a whole. Independent of who the landowner is, it's a hard field. It's a lot of work. With the community forest efforts that we've seen, there's challenges throughout the process. The first phase is the acquisition phase. We've seen a lot of willing landowners willing to sell. Commonly, most forest landowners are willing to sell property with a good relationship with the community and with a good price in hand to sell the property for a high value. That being the case, the forest we're talking about, [00:28:00] especially West side, Washington and Oregon, Pacific Northwest forests are the most productive forest land, and therefore the highest valued forest land.

So to get a property and a successful community forest started, it requires significant funding and there's been a wide array of funding that's been available over the past decade. Federal programs, including the Forest Legacy Program and Community Forest and Open Space Program, as well as state facilitated programs including Washington State's Recreation and Conservation Offices, Community Forest Program and Oregon; the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Boards Drinking Water Source Protection Program, they're all available and there's infrastructure there, but there's not available funding at the level that there's demand for these properties. So that's a really long way of saying fundraising is a huge aspect of all of these properties and [00:29:00] aligning a financial package that works for the community and is a risk the community's willing to take and also works for the landowner. Once the property has come into community ownership, the challenges are more in terms of management. In all of these areas, there are foresters and forestry experts able to get on the property, contract, and support the work that needs to be done. But commonly, community forest management goals can be more ecologically minded and with the properties that reach the price point of affordable for a community and available to sell, those commonly aren't properties that have full tree stands that are able to be harvested for revenue.

They're properties that are 15 years away from commercial viability. And so there's a gap where the property comes into community ownership. The [00:30:00] capacity is there. The management plan has been designed and recommended as to here's how you get the property in the condition that you as a community want it to be in.

But that's all gonna be a cost that can't be recouped for five years or for 10 years. Again, that, that depends on the forest structure of a property. And the larger the properties, the more likelihood there is for some revenue to be generated through harvest and through management. But as a whole community forests do run into an issue of initial management and being able to pay for the initial management costs before there's widespread availability of timber for harvest.

[00:30:40] Jake Barker: So once these forests have been acquired, it might have been a very complicated, long standing process.

Public Access and Community Involvement

[00:30:47] Jake Barker: How does the community regulate who gets access? Is it open to the public typically?

Is there a permit system? Like, One of the things I'm thinking about is liability, and there are many places in [00:31:00] the Northwest where you can recreate on private timberlands, but in order to do that, you have to fill out a waiver. What's a typical approach for that?

[00:31:08] Daniel Wear: Every community forest is gonna approach public use a little bit differently. What we've seen is that it's another process. In the same way that coming together and designing a forest management plan is a process that might take three to six months of community input, so to is deciding how the property is used by the community and how it's available. For public use of a community forest, deciding what the best approach to public use is a process in the same way that developing a forest management plan is a process, whether it takes three weeks, three months, six months, being able to sit down with the community members and saying, how do we wanna use this resource? What are the benefits we see from it? How do we ensure that the [00:32:00] community benefits from access and public use? It's always a conversation and no two community forest projects look the same, and no two recreation or public access plans and priorities look the same. Commonly what will happen is public access will be allowed on a property as long as it aligns with the other community goals.

So if there is a goal around water quality for drinking water, there might be portions of a community forest where public access isn't encouraged. You might be able to walk your dog on the roads, but no use of trails or there will be no trails in one section of the property until you're out of the core of the drinking watershed, and then maybe there are trails in the farther reaches of the property. Or maybe a community [00:33:00] and the history of recreation and use is integral to the property itself. Maybe that's a very short conversation that this parcel, before it became a community forest, was a hub for birdwatching and hiking and biking and passive recreation. So while we're moving towards recreation planning process, we'll maintain the prior usage requirements, usage goals. And then after that six month process, they might come back to the community and say, "okay, we've decided that passive recreation is allowed. But if you're using a four wheeler or if you're coming in for hunting, it's allowed during these windows of the season or in these portions of the property." I think what's cool about these properties is it can be an iterative process. There could be a public use plan, public recreation plan that allows activities and then after five years, the community realizes, [00:34:00] hey, this isn't working. Our equestrian users and our mountain bikers are ending up on the same trail and conflict is taking place, then they might be able to go back to the drawing board and say, let's make a set of recommended horse trails and a set of hiking trails and a set of biking trails and maybe the areas where someone might wanna ride their bike on the property isn't the same areas that someone's gonna wanna take their horse or wanna go out on a walk.

Again, every property is gonna look different, and predominantly we do see public use as a priority out of these properties. Whether it's interspersed with the other priorities. That's a very common goal of a community forest. And depending on the funding that comes to support the property, it might be required.

So some properties, they might get funding from the US Forest Service Community Forest and Open Space Program, and within that program there's a requirement of public use. So [00:35:00] they knew from the minute they applied for the funding that it would come with a public use commitment. And one last thing I'd add is some community forests, like I mentioned earlier, have a strong relationship with area tribes, and there might be some practices that tribal members may hope to implement on the property that might be allowed, that maybe the general public doesn't have those same opportunities to do. And that's again, always an ongoing conversation, but really understanding what's available when and how more broadly the benefits can support all members of the community.

[00:35:40] Jake Barker: That's great. It seems like the iterative process there where a community has the opportunity to revisit practices or procedures set at a certain point in time that they can go back and adjust as it progresses and as maybe as values change as well. So overall though, it sounds [00:36:00] like a pretty complicated process and that it's gonna look very different depending on where you are and who's in the community.

So say I'm a community and I want to set up a community forest. One of the things I know you facilitate and are part of is the Community Forest Coalition. Would I join that? What is that coalition and how would someone who's interested in doing a community forest in their community go about engaging in that group?

[00:36:29] Daniel Wear: Yeah, I'm glad you asked. The Northwest Community Forest Coalition, it's a body of members across the region and Sustainable Northwest. We have the pleasure of facilitating it and learning from others, along with others, but making sure that the meetings that are taking place are actually necessary and actually helpful to different community forest current and potential community forests.

So our coalition has meetings twice a [00:37:00] year. Once a year, they'll be virtually once a year they'll be in person, depending on the different coalition priorities. There may be quarterly meetings, but for the most part, there are twice annual meetings of the membership. Anyone is welcome to join these meetings and the new members can come in and learn from successful community forest projects who will come and share their experiences and learn about different upcoming opportunities, whether it's the opportunity to visit a community forest property, or the opportunity to pursue funding to begin a community forest project. Or, maybe you already have a community forest or have some private forest land that could benefit from some of the knowledge that community forest practitioners have. Whether it's a forester coming to the meeting, sharing how they're going about their thinning approach on steep slopes [00:38:00] to minimize the impact to soil quality, or whether it's a community forest, talking about how they're implementing prescribed fire in partnership with their local county or their local fire department. Those are just a couple of the wide array of meeting topics that take place. The Community Forest Coalition will host the meetings virtually and when the meetings take place in person, they will include a day site visit to a community forest that is either a recent success or has a longstanding tradition of community forestry.

Funding and Support for Community Forests

[00:38:39] Jake Barker: So you've talked a couple times about established funding programs from states and federal government. What's the current outlook for funding for community forests?

[00:38:53] Daniel Wear: State funding and federal funding, I think everyone's feeling a pinch. In terms of programs that are [00:39:00] available, in terms of state budgets I know in sustainable Northwest's work, both in Washington and Oregon the budget, the revenue projections aren't looking that strong. That being said, in Washington, there's a program in place that is specifically for the acquisition of forest land for community forests, and that program is written into law and will continue to exist moving forward. That's Washington's Recreation and Conservation Offices Community Forest program. And that program, conveniently, is accepting grant applications this upcoming spring to be reviewed and recommended for the next biennium funding cycle.

So that program allows funding for $3 million for projects, and typically it's a competitive program but, three to four programs, every biennium have received funding and we hope that continues to be the case. In Oregon, there's a bit more [00:40:00] creativity in terms of funding programs. Recently the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board had a round of funding to support community forest land acquisition in drinking watersheds.

This current biennium, that funding is not available but we're hoping that funding will come back in 2027 to 2029. We have seen multiple community forest projects come online through funding from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board which has a land acquisition program. Federally over the past 15 years, there's been a significant increase in funding for community forest land acquisitions.

One of those programs is the community Forest and Open Space Program. That's operated through the US Forest Service and that funding, when made available funds projects up to $600,000 annually. It typically funds around six to 10 projects a year.

And a number of those projects have [00:41:00] been in the Northwest region. There's been a consistent, successful track record of projects in that program in our region. The Federal Forest Legacy Program is another mechanism through the US Forest Service that has supported larger scale community forest land acquisitions.

The US Forest Service typically funds projects between one and $3 million and is mainly available to public municipalities and tribes who are pursuing forest land acquisition. The programs are there, they have existed in the past, we hope to see them continue to be funded in the future, of course. The public funding environment is more slow this year than it's been in the past but we're hoping that these programs are able to continue and sustain at least at a baseline level projects as they come forward. One of the things I will say about community forests is that there's a lot of creative approaches that can be taken [00:42:00] to buying forest land. We've seen community forests reach out to landowners or groups that consider themselves interim landowners to say, 'Hey, we wanna buy this property, but the landowner's timeline for selling this parcel doesn't align with our fundraising timeline'. So, there's certainly opportunities to engage interim landowners under the agreement that if funding goals are met, you can acquire the property for a certain price in five years or in seven years. We've also seen the use of bridge funding or forgivable loans from the state level as well.

One of those tools is the Clean Water State Revolving Fund which we're really impressed by both the state of Oregon and the state of Washington and their willingness to consider forest land as a tool for green infrastructure in the ways that I highlighted around drinking [00:43:00] watersheds. And we hope to see more of that in the future.

And those funds, because they are loan funds, will remain available into the future and have really good terms when compared to private loans as well. There's no one way to fund a community forest. There's no one way to design a community forest. There's no one way to manage a community forest.

So I think that the diversity of funding approaches really highlights the diversity of community forestry as a whole.

[00:43:26] Jake Barker: It gives me a lot of hope to hear about that investment coming from so many different angles and I think that is a great place to wrap up.

[00:43:35] Daniel Wear: Great. Jake, I appreciate the opportunity.

[00:43:38] Jake Barker: So, In summary, today we have explored concepts of community forests around the Pacific Northwest. And we've discussed a few key examples from the coast. This approach to forest ownership gives communities direct involvement in forest management goals and decisions, which in turn supports resilient communities by improving water quality, reducing landslides, mitigating fire [00:44:00] risk, and providing timber revenue. While community forests have a long history, there is momentum today from communities and cities in our region to acquire nearby forest land to support diverse goals into the future. I've learned a lot today from Daniel. I am really inspired by the versatility of community forests and their ability to tailor specific goals to a landscape as well as their iterative capacity, being able to adjust over time based on the different goals and values of the communities who are engaged with management and stewardship. So as you were listening today, if any questions came up or we didn't cover a specific topic that you were interested in, please drop us a comment or send us a message on our website, InTheWoodsPodcast.org.

Lightning Round and Conclusion

[00:44:47] Jake Barker: But don't leave us yet because next up is our lightning round.

[00:44:56] Jake Barker: All right, Daniel, so as we wrap up here, we would love to ask [00:45:00] you a couple questions that we ask every one of our guests. And first up, as always, what is your favorite tree?

[00:45:07] Daniel Wear: I've certainly seen a lot of 'em over the past five or so years of my work, but I have to give it to the Western red cedar. I think especially in the properties I'm working on in these coastal forests the legacy stumps of these Western red cedar old growth trees. Astonishing and really put to scale how big some of the trees have been on these properties.

And it, it's really cool to see.

[00:45:29] Jake Barker: What is the most interesting thing that you bring with you in the field?

[00:45:33] Daniel Wear: When I'm visiting a site of course I might do a field tour with a forester, but after hours I always try and bring my bike and ride the forest roads. While it may be insanely steep to get to the top of a watershed or of a of forested property it really helps me get a more intimate knowledge of the acreage and the parcels that I'm working on.

[00:45:55] Jake Barker: That's great, pedal-power! And lastly, what [00:46:00] resources would you recommend to our listeners if they're interested in learning more about today's topic?

[00:46:04] Daniel Wear: Yeah, I am excited to say that the Northwest Community Forest Coalition has a wide array of information and stories and tools around community forestry. So I recommend that everybody goes to the Northwest Community Forest coalition's website, which is NWCommunityForest.org, and look at some of those tools.

I specifically wanna highlight a recent story map that's been developed where you can take a step by step tour through 15 or 20 of the community forest in the region and learn about them and what inspired the work to take place and what their futures look like.

[00:46:44] Jake Barker: Fantastic. We will include those links in the podcast post on our website, so listeners can check those out there and I highly recommend them as well. I've had a great time exploring the story map, so highly recommend that. But thank you [00:47:00] so much for joining us today, Daniel. We really appreciate your time and your work across the region and in Oregon.

And we are excited for all the things to come with Sustainable Northwest and community forests, writ large. So thank you all for tuning in and listening. This concludes another episode of In the Woods. Join us in a couple weeks to explore another topic on Oregon's amazing Forests. But until then, what's in your woods?

[00:47:26] Lauren Grand: The In The Woods Podcast is produced by Lauren Grand, Jacob Putney, and Scott Leavengood, who are all members of the Oregon State University Forestry and Natural Resources Extension team. Other members of the team who've been involved in the podcast include Carrie Berger, Jason O'Brien and Steven Fitzgerald. Episodes are edited and produced by Carrie Cantrell.

Music for In the Woods was composed by Jeffrey Heino and graphic design was created by Christina Friedhauf. Funding for In the Woods is provided by Oregon State University Forestry Natural [00:48:00] Resources Extension, the Oregon Forest Resources Institute and the USDA Renewable Resources Extension Act funding.

We hope you enjoyed the episode and we can't wait to talk to you again next month. Until then, what's in your woods?