OSU seeking input on McDonald-Dunn Forest. Some say not hard enough (2024)

Oregon State University is preparing a draft of an updated management plan for its largest research forest after nearly 20 years without a new one.

As part of that process, the university is looking for more community input next week on how it plans to divvy up its 11,000-plus-acre McDonald-Dunn Forest for different purposes, such as ecological research and timber harvesting.

The process, however, isn’t without a small but vocal group of critics, who earlier this week voiced their discontent with how OSU’s College of Forestry has handled developing the new framework over the past two years.

That disapproval involved just a handful of student demonstrators picketing outside the Memorial Union on Thursday, May 30, attempting to draw attention to what they say is a lack of transparency and responsiveness from College of Forestry officials to their concerns.

Among those concerns is ensuring McDonald-Dunn's old growths are protected, and that a diversity of voices has a seat at the management planning table, not just those associated with the College of Forestry.

While the college's dean, Tom DeLuca, who will make the final decisions on a new plan, applauded students' passion, he said those concerns were largely unfounded and that the planning process has been more open than previous efforts, pointing to work with Oregon Consensus, a state program that helps navigate differences on contentious subjects, to oversee its public outreach.

"I feel good about the direction we're going," DeLuca said. "Could we do better? Definitely."

Hunter Grove, an OSU environmental science major who led the small demonstration through the youth-led climate advocacy group Sunrise Corvallis, acknowledged it's too late to sit more folks on the committees currently tasked with shaping the new 10-year plan, which is scheduled to be drafted this summer.

But Grove hopes there will be more opportunities in the future for greater transparency and collaboration.

“Our main hopes for this demonstration is that (the college) will take students more seriously,” they said.

Brief recap

For some context, McDonald-Dunn, about a 20-minute drive north of campus, is the proverbial jewel in OSU’s crown of research forests, where students can learn and work. The College of Forestry, which manages these acres and acres of land, uses timber sales from the forests to support the school’s budget.

McDonald-Dunn's current management plan, however, hasn’t been updated since 2005.

In fact, that 2005 plan, which outlines varying forest management methodsand goals for different areas of McDonald-Dunn, was suspended in 2009, leaving the forest without a formal plan for a decade, according to a 2019 memo written by then-interim forestry dean Anthony Davis.

Davis called for the school to reinstate the 2005 plan, following the controversial 2019 clear-cutting of nearly 16 acres of old-growth Douglas firs, including one tree that was over 400 years old.

That distrust was on full display on Thursday when he joined six others outside the Memorial Union with signs and chalk.

Back in 2019, Davis, who tied the old growth cuts to a lack of a concrete management plan,launched a moratorium on the cutting of trees more than 160 years old, until a new framework was drafted.

A new plan

DeLuca, who succeeded Davis, got the ball rolling on a new management plan in 2020, forming a college research forest advisory committee to create vision, mission and goal statements for the school’s research forests.

Those mission statements include creating “opportunities for education, research, and outreach,” demonstrating how a “sustainably managed forest” promotes prosperity and biodiversity, and enhancing the “wellbeing of local communities, Tribal communities, and our broader citizenship.”

Two committees have since formed to assist with creating an updated management plan for McDonald-Dunn: an external stakeholder advisory group consisting of different interests, including Tribes and timber companies, and a faculty planning group.

Those committees began hosting a series of meetings starting in summer of 2022. Those meetings have so far included two community listening sessions and one input session. The next public input opportunity is slated for Wednesday, June 5.

For Pollock, too much of the planning process has been held behind “closed doors.” He’s also taken issue with not being able to apply for seat on the stakeholder advisory committee, which includes representatives from the Greenbelt Land Trust, the Corvallis Audubon Society, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and Starker Forests.

He's also concerned by a lack of expertise diversity on the faculty planning committee, with nine of its 11 members associated with the College of Forestry.

Grove, who’s also been actively following the planning process since 2022, said they’d like to see faculty from other OSU departments, like the College of Integrated Biology, have a seat at the table to increase a range of perspectives.

They also want to see a greater emphasis on incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge management practices(forestry practices informed by local Indigenous populations) into any future plan. One of their asks includes the development of a Kalapuyan cultural center within McDonald-Dunn.

DeLuca, who said he met with students following their demonstration earlier this week, said he'd commit to including undergraduate representation in the next forest management plan.

He also pointed to efforts by the college to engage Indigenous communities in the McDonald-Dunn planning process, including through the school's Indigenous Natural Resource Office and through meetings with regional Tribal councils.

"We're trying to do a better job as a land grant university and as a College of Forestry of serving our tribal partners than we have in the past," DeLuca said.

The next public input meeting is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m.Wednesday, June 5, at the Peavy Forest Science Center Room 117, 3100 SW Jefferson Way, andcan also be attended via Zoom.

According to an OSU news release, the meeting will offer the community a back-and-forth for public questions about the possible forest management strategies on the table.

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