Case Study: Pilot Joe
Summary
In 2010, SOFRC convened the 3-day Solutions for Forests conference at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, attracting over 200 people to discuss the challenges and opportunities of landscape-scale restoration. A field trip highlighted the Applegate as an area where dry forest with a historically frequent fire regime needed active management.
Following this field trip, the Middle Applegate Pilot Joe landscape-scale restoration project was designated by United States Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar as a secretarial pilot project. Secretary Salazar called on Drs. Jerry F. Franklin and K. Norman Johnson, noted forestry scientists and authors in the Pacific Northwest, to work with local BLM Medford managers. Together, they would apply dry forest restoration principles to protect habitat and reduce fire risk while providing employment, maintaining mill infrastructure, and building public support for the active restoration of federal forests.
Long-term ecological objectives of the project include:
- Increasing forest and ecosystem resistance and resilience,
- Increasing spatial heterogeneity to benefit biodiversity and species of concern at the stand and landscape scale, and
- Conserving and improving northern spotted owl habitat.
The social objectives included:
- Generating jobs and supporting regional manufacturing infrastructure and
- Gaining public support for active management in federal forests.
It takes a village: Reflecting on the success of Pilot Joe at 10 years
Read all about project design, public participation, and multiparty monitoring in the Applegater newsmagazine.
“At five years post-treatment (2017), the multiparty monitoring team noticed clear signs of increased forest resilience…”
Why is multiparty monitoring important?
Multiparty monitoring documents whether ecological and social objectives are being met in both the short and long term. Monitoring also informs management so that updated practices can be applied and refined. Long-term monitoring can assess whether the key restoration principles are having the desired ecological effects.
Multiparty Monitoring Team
Over 40 community members attended a public meeting in June 2011 to discuss monitoring needs and goals and how to ensure successful monitoring.
As an outcome of this meeting, SOFRC assembled a diverse team of community and agency members to create and implement a monitoring plan that would assess progress on the Pilot Joe project goals. In the winter of 2012, SOFRC received support from the BLM Medford District Resource Advisory Committee to convene, facilitate and advance the work of this multiparty monitoring team.
The initial phase of the Pilot Joe multiparty monitoring effort began prior to project implementation in 2011 and continued immediately after treatment activity in 2013. Reports were posted to the BLM website.
In 2016 the multi-party monitoring team received additional BLM Title II funds to complete 5-year post-treatment data collection and shared those results internally with BLM specialists and during two public field tours.
Post Treatment Results
Based on the measured indicators from the initial and 5-year time frames, results indicate that ecosystem resistance and resilience are increasing. The dry forest restoration approach developed by Drs. Franklin and Johnson increased biodiversity by conserving and enhancing important habitats, increased resistance, and resilience of the forests to disturbances, provide job opportunities and forest products, and also gained public support. A few of the indicators, such as tree vigor and understory species diversity and recruitment, will take time to respond to the altered post-treatment conditions. The anticipated 10-year monitoring will provide additional data and results to inform these long-term variables. Results will be published here when they are available.
Supporting Documents
