Putting words to action in the Oregon Coast Region

When ecologists from the Siuslaw National Forest needed to know about the future of their unit, they weren’t left to answer their questions alone. Instead, their need became the seed of a project that would ultimately bring together a working group of scientists and land managers with common goals: compile the best available science to assess the vulnerability of federal forests and surrounding lands along the Oregon coast to climate change and develop options for adapting to those vulnerabilities. The Oregon Coast Adaptation Partnership (or OCAP, as it became known) has produced a final report with authors from the Forest Service, Northwest Climate Hub, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and University of Washington, and will continue to be integrated into the land management and planning for the area for years to come.

The science-management partnership was built on a collaborative framework that has been used throughout the United States to tackle multifaceted management issues. “It was a collaboration between the Research and Development branch of the Forest Service and regions and units of the National Forest System,” explained Jessica Halofsky, the director of the Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center, Northwest Climate Hub, and a lead editor of the Oregon coast assessment.

“These assessments usually start with interest from a National Forest System unit, whether that is because they're seeing changes on the ground or are about to go through a process like Forest Plan revision and are looking for that latest science on climate change. From there, we identify what the objectives of the assessment are and assemble both science and management teams. For the science side, we find expertise in the particular areas that we want to address in the assessment, and then on the management side, find expertise in those areas as well as people who are responsible for management on the ground,” Halofsky said.

Once subject area teams are formed, scientists and managers collaborate to compile local data and scientific information relevant to the assessment area.

“We don't rely on any single source to say this is what's going to happen in the future,” Halofsky continued, “We use models but also published literature on field studies. So it's a synthesis and translation of science into what the likely changes we're going to see in the future are. Then we present it to the resource managers. We say this is the information we've gathered and these are our conclusions. Based on that, what do you think? What should your response to this be in terms of adaptation?”

Collaboration across boundaries

“Being able to talk across boundaries is just critical,” said Stephanie Dawn, a program lead for the BLM Northwest Oregon District. She worked as an intermediary between BLM land managers and Forest Service researchers during the process. Previously, Dawn worked as a Forest Service researcher for 10 years. Her understanding of both agencies and their differing priorities and operating styles helped her act as a bridge within the partnership.

“A lot of times, it's just simply a matter of translating what a Forest Service term or metric is for a certain element, thinking ‘How do I translate this for my BLM team.’ It also helped them understand how the Forest Service does their work in parallel with BLM,” Dawn said. “We’re all essentially doing the same thing, managing our lands responsibly and sustainably. We just have different names and labels we put on them.”

This report, and the management implications it contains, reaches beyond Forest Service managed lands to encompass other federal, state, and privately managed lands. Dawn emphasized just how important institutional and disciplinary translation is, both for the creation of an interdisciplinary report like the Oregon coast vulnerability assessment, and for its future utility. “Each team is highly capable and knowledgeable in their own right…Sometimes you just need someone to walk a team to the other side and package things up in a way that’s easily digestible.”

Photo Credit

Jessica Halofsky, USDA Forest Service.

Doug Glavich, an ecologist with the Siuslaw National Forest, presenting at Cascade Head during the Oregon coast assessment kick-off meeting in 2019.

Doug Glavich, a Forest Service ecologist in the Pacific Northwest Region, helped translate in a different capacity. Glavich played a major role in the creation of the Oregon coast report, providing local data and helping to fine tune models, analyses, and language to better fit local context.

Now that the report is available to the public, the next phase of the partnership’s life begins. As Glavich clarified, “There's a lot of post-vulnerability assessment work that's going on to help translate that information.”

So far, Glavich and Forest Service colleagues have held webinars and workshops to help land managers and other practitioners interpret and integrate the report’s findings into their own work.

“There was the one big day where we brought on all of the lead authors, and we actually did a full day where each author did a 20-minute presentation of the key points from their chapter.”

“We really wanted folks to get information straight from the lead authors, the scientists’ mouths. It really meant a lot to get it from those folks. And then they're digesting it, and when it comes time a few months down the road when folks are starting to think about things, we’ll be ready with an even more distilled version.”

Glavich and other colleagues from the Pacific Northwest Research Station have been busy since the report was finalized, working with Forest Service staff to help integrate the findings in reports required by the National Environmental Protection Act, as well as with community partners like the Mary's Peak Stewardship Group and Coast Range Collaborative. These stewardship groups promote forest restoration that meets the needs of the local community. The work of translating the findings into on-the-ground action and making them accessible to the many groups working in and around the area is ongoing. As Dawn noted, “There is just so much information in there, and helping land managers and resource specialists understand what it means for their particular resource is critical.”

Forest Service Research and Development staff like Halofsky, regional experts like Glavich, agency partners like Dawn, and many others are all working to help ensure that the valuable information included in the assessment will be used and that the hard work that went into creating this report will benefit the Oregon coast region for years to come.