Andy moved to Oregon to join AFRC as its field forester from Washington state where he worked for six years in the woods of Lewis County. A native of Long Island, New York, Andy somehow discovered that a profession existed called forestry. He earned his B.S in forest management from Virginia Tech and since then has worked as a forester in various settings. He was first introduced to how timber management goes hand in hand with forest management while working for the Missouri Department of Conservation and then the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Andy lives in Springfield with his wife and daughter who is being introduced to the Oregon forests while riding on Andy’s back.

Presentation Topic

Authorities to Maximize Restoration

Presentation Description

The management plans for national forests in Oregon typically contain numerous prescriptive limitations that often inhibit the ability of land managers to implement effective dry forest treatments over large landscapes in need. These limitations are embedded in land designations, sensitive species directives, and survey requirements that in many cases were established prior to the development of dry forest restoration principles. These prescriptive limitations can inhibit land managers from both maximizing the treatment acres in need and treating individual stands to the level they require based on dry forest restoration principles. On dry forest landscapes in southwestern Oregon, land managers have faced these obstacles and utilized various authorities to navigate through them in order to implement dry forest restoration treatments to their fullest extent. While the specifics of these obstacles likely differ from those in eastern and central Oregon, the methods in which land managers overcame them are likely transferable.

During his presentation, Andy will outline a few of these current and potential authorities and approaches that would lead to increasing the pace and scale of dry forest restoration.