Forestry Smart Policy

In this episode, Katie Murray, Executive Director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter (OFS) returns to the podcast, but this time to host a conversation with Isabella Nelson, recent graduate from Oregon State University (OSU) with an honors bachelor of science degree in environmental chemistry and a minor in toxicology, and Dr. Kim Anderson, professor from the Department of Environmental and Molecu...

In this episode we interview Chris Evans, president of Oregon's newest mass timber manufacturer, TimberLab, who played a major role in the new mass timber ceiling at the Portland International Airport (PDX). We talk about everything from what mass timber is, the history of using large wood in construction, the construction speed advantage of wood buildings that utilize cross laminated timber,...

This episode with Sara Duncan, Director of Communications for the Oregon Forest Industries Council, takes on the top six myths about the timber industry, including: 1. Tree farms are not forests, and the timber industry only plants a monoculture of Douglas-fir. 2. Clearcuts are unnecessary, you could just thin forests instead. 3. Logging is the number one source of carbon emissions in Oregon and o...

In this episode, Senator Elizabeth Steiner, Senate co-chair of the full Ways and Means Committee in the Oregon Legislature, discusses a work group she convened that OFIC's Kyle Williams participated in after the end of the 2023 legislative session. The work group was tasked with exploring ways to address Oregon's wildfire funding crisis that has been building for years, and resulted in a c...

This episode with Katie Murray, executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter, and Seth Barnes, director of forest policy for the Oregon Forest Industries Council covers all things related to pesticide use in forestry, including: how pesticides (primarily herbicides) are applied either aerially or with a ground crew roughly two to four times in the first few years of a new forests’ life to...

This episode with Dr. Tom DeLuca, dean of the Oregon State University College of Forestry, focuses primarily on carbon sequestration and storage in forestry and forest soils. We also discuss a whole range of topics surrounding carbon, including the history of forestry as a practice, the carbon cycle of forests, how long carbon is stored in wood products, the carbon benefits of mass timber like cro...

This episode with Jim Paul, the newly appointed Executive Director of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, discusses the institute’s three primary program areas (public education, K-12 education, and landowner education), as well as how OFRI is funded, the institute’s response to former Governor Kate Brown's request for a 2021 audit by Oregon Secretary of State Shamia Fagan, and implications...

As a follow-up to our two previous episodes that focused on the history of state forest lands in Oregon and the state’s pursuit of a Habitat Conservation Plan, this episode discusses the recent terms agreed to by the state to settle a lawsuit filed by environmental organizations over alleged impact the state’s forest management activities have to coho salmon habitat. The episode also includes a mi...

This is the second in a two-part series on Oregon’s state forests, including the current controversy surrounding the Department of Forestry’s pursuit of a Habitat Conservation Plan for western Oregon state forests, the plan’s failure to provide adequate projected timber harvest levels to keep the Department of Forestry’s budget afloat for the next 70 years, and the mounting pressure on the Board o...

This is the first in a two-part series about Oregon’s state forests, including the history of how the state acquired over 600,000 acres of forest from 15 forest trust land counties in the 1930s and 1940s, the progression of management approaches and issues on those forests over the last seven decades, and what lead the state to pursue a Habitat Conservation Plan for western Oregon state forests th...

This is the second in a two-part series on wildfire in Oregon, including the unique and world-class elements of Oregon’s wildland firefighting system (known as the complete and coordinated system), it’s unique and complex funding mechanism paid in part by private timber companies and in part by taxpayers through the General Fund, and ways the state can work with the federal government to address o...

This is the first in a two-part series on wildfire in Oregon, including what’s causing the wildfire crisis in Oregon, what role climate change plays in our smoky skies, the different firefighting and land management approaches of private landowners and federal landowners, and how we might begin to take on treating Oregon’s forests with thinning and controlled burns, and creating defensible space a...