Oregon's forest health

Forest health has always been an important topic, but today it’s even more so. Climate change, drought, insect epidemics, invasive species invasions and catastrophic wildfires are all taking their toll on our forests. Forest managers and forest landowners need to keep abreast of the latest on forest health to protect their investments and future timber harvests. 

Lucky for us, every two years a conference called Forest Health in Oregon: State of the State is held at Oregon State University. This year’s conference will be held Feb. 26-27 at the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus in Corvallis.

The conference will include sessions on:

-tree mortality, drought, weather and climate change

-insects and disease

-biodiversity and forest health

-collaborative groups and forest health in Oregon

-silviculture, forest health and operations

-fire in Oregon

Speakers include researchers, educators, specialists and practitioners from:

-OSU College of Forestry

-OSU Extension Service

-U.S. Forest Service

-Oregon Department of Forestry

-Environmental Protection Agency

-U.S. Geological Survey

-Sustainable Northwest

-Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative

OFRI is a sponsor of this conference, along with the Oregon Small Woodlands Association, the Oregon Tree Farm System, the Northwest Fire Science Consortium and, of course OSU’s College of Forestry and Extension Service.

Please consider joining us for Forest Health in Oregon: State of the State 2020. This will be the third State of the State conference OFRI has been a sponsor of, and I’ve been part of each one. The previous conferences in 2016 and 2018 did a great job of summarizing where we were in various forest health issues. This year’s conference appears poised to continue the trend.

More information and registration here. 

For the forest,

Mike Cloughesy

Director of Forestry