• Board Members

The Oregon Board of Forestry...

• Supervises all matters of forest policy within Oregon
• Appoints the State Forester
• Adopts rules regulating forest practices
• Provides general supervision of the State Foresster´s duties in managing the Oregon Department of Forestry. 

1. Healthy forests providing a sustainable flow of environmental, economic, and social outputs and benefits.
2. Public and private landowners willingly making investments to create healthy forests.
3. Statewide forest resource policies that are coordinated among Oregon´s natural resources agencies.
4. A Board of Forestry recognized as an impartial deliberative body operating openly and in the public interest.
5. Citizens who understand, accept, and support sustainable forestry and who make informed decisions that contribute to achievement of the vision of the 2003 Forestry Program for Oregon.
6. Adequate funding for the Department of Forestry to efficiently and cost-effectively accomplish the mission and strategies of the Board of Forestry, and department personnel policies that encourage and recognize employees, allowing them to meet their full potential in providing excellent public service.
   

• Provides transparency for all Board activities
• Outlines a predictable sequence of events for any decision-making effort
• Is a process that is agreed to and understood by all Board members
• Facilitates the Boards ability to exercise leadership, manage conflict, and create a high level of forward thinking
• Encourages policy-making that is adaptive and responsive to rapidly changing needs and concerns
• Utilizes both Board and staff time as efficiently and effectively as possible
• Fully integrates the use of sound science
• Is recognized by stakeholders as a place to be fully heard and understood
• Maintains the Board’s commitment to consensus decision-making
• Allows new Board members to effectively contribute as quickly as possible
• Is focused on creating results
• Is efficiently documented
• Supports continuity
• Fully aligns with the Board’s statutory responsibilities

Summary
In 2003, the Oregon Board of Forestry revised its strategic forest policy document, the Forestry Program for Oregon, and incorporated into state policy an internationally recognized framework for measuring and discussing sustainable forest management.
 
In March of 2005, the Board of Forestry's ad hoc Sustainable Forest Management Advisory Committee was appointed from a broad range of stakeholders and given the charge to:
1. Coordinate with technical experts to reach both strong policy and technical consensus on a set of recommended sustainable forest management indicators for use in measuring Forestry Program for Oregon implementation progress.
2. Solicit and summarize broad stakeholder input on both the usefulness of the recommended indicators and potential desired future outcomes for these indicators.
3. Provide advice to the Board of Forestry both on recommended indicators and desired future outcomes.
4. Provide advice to the State Forester on future Forest Assessment Project priorities.
5.
 
The committee met for the first time in Salem on April 27 mostly to get oriented and organized. In addition to biological diversity, indicators will be developed for forest ecosystem health, social and economic benefits, forest productive capacity, soil and water resources, and legal and institutional frameworks (matching the seven strategies in the Forestry Program for Oregon).
 
Additional information about the committee and the project, including background, project planning, committee membership and meeting information, and core indicator development, can be accessed on the web page for the Sustainable Forestry Indicators Project.
About the photos used on this web page:
 
All of the photos on this web page were taken by Arlene Whalen, Public Affairs Specialist with the ODF Agency Affairs Program, at the Hinkle Creek Research and Demonstration Area in southern Oregon. Hinkle Creek is a cooperative research project jointly being conducted by Oregon State University and Oregon Department of Forestry on private lands owned and managed by Roseburg Forest Products.

Summary
Much policy in the 21st century has been geared up to protect prime forestry. Excessively aggressive logging is known to be an unsustainable and detrimental activity, both in Oregon and the wider United States. Forest protection laws have evolved rapidly to safeguard the future of the USA's greenest areas, but more yet has to be done to secure the future of our trees. Experts in energy security information, such as Daniel Yergin, have already weighed into the debate to point out the growing importance of renewable research in order to truly secure the future of the world's developed economies. At OregonForestry.org, we aim to engineer guidelines and policy that best serve the important interests of business, consumers and the environment combined. Find out more at our sustainable energy page.