Attending the annual Society of American Foresters National Convention is always one of the high points of my year. One of the ways I participate is by volunteering to moderate a few technical sessions. I choose sessions that pique my interest. They’re usually related to forestry education, forest policy, private forestry or silviculture.
When the convention was held in Portland in October I had the chance to moderate an excellent session on education, extension and communication. One of the talks during the session was perhaps the best I listened to at this year’s convention. It was titled “Best Management Practices Field Guides: Are they at Optimum Readability for Effective Implementation?” The talk was given by Emily Paye, a graduate student from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY.
As indicated by the title of her talk, Emily’s research used standard readability indices to evaluate best-management-practices field manuals from various states. In her introduction, Emily pointed out that the average American reads at about a seventh-grade level. The purpose of her research was to find out if the average American reader would be able to understand the field guides written to educate landowners on the best forest management practices to protect water, soil and wildlife in their states.
Emily evaluated all the field guides she could find online, and used three different indices. Here is what she found as the average for each index for the Western states:
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Index: 12.19
Gunning-Fog Index: 14.14
Coleman-Liau Index: 12.12
What this means is that to read and understand these field guides you should be able to read at a 12th- to 14th-grade reading level. This, of course, is much higher than the average American’s seventh-grade reading level.
I was disappointed to see that the OFRI publication Oregon’s Forest Protection Laws: An Illustrated Manual was not included in the list of field guides Emily reviewed. When I brought this to her attention she said she assumed the manual was aimed at regulators, not landowners. I told her it actually is very much a field guide for forest landowners and loggers.
Emily volunteered to evaluate the readability of Oregon’s Forest Protection Laws and followed up with me after the convention to get an electronic version. I sent one to her, and here’s what her analysis showed:
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Index: 9.3
Gunning-Fog Index: 11.58
Coleman-Liau Index: 7.86
While we didn’t quite match the reading level of the average American with Oregon’s Forest Protection Laws, we did better than the field guides Emily evaluated from other Western states.
We apparently have some work to do – but I want to point out that grade-level readability was not explicitly used as a tool when we wrote Oregon’s Forest Protection Laws. It will be next time.
In the meantime, if you want to see if your reading level is high enough to grasp the material in the newly revised third edition of Oregon’s Forest Protection Laws, check it out online or order a copy here.
For the forest,
Mike Cloughesy
Director of Forestry
This past week, I was among a group of Oregonians who traveled to Washington, D.C., for the events leading up to and including the lighting of the 2018 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree. I was honored to be among a group that showcased the best of Oregon.
This year’s tree was harvested from Oregon’s own Willamette National Forest. It was an approximately 75-foot noble fir that made a 3,000-mile reverse journey on the Oregon Trail.
The tree itself was representative of the best of Oregon’s abundant forests, but that was really just one piece of the story. During the many events that celebrated the tree in Washington, I came to appreciate everything and everyone from Oregon who played roles from small to large to put Oregon’s best foot forward on the national stage.
On my first morning in D.C. I walked around the West Lawn of the Capitol and spotted the tree, which displayed some of the more than 10,000 Christmas ornaments that were handmade by Oregonians from all over the state.
At the first event of the week, held at The National Press Club, the tree’s partners were honored. Among them was the presenting sponsor, Papé Group, which is celebrating its 80th year in business in Oregon. Also recognized at this event was the town of Sweet Home, home to the U.S. Forest Service Sweet Home Ranger District, where the tree was grown. This was also the first time I met Brigette Harrington, a fourth-grade student from Hillsboro, and winner of Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s contest asking students to write letters about what they love about the state’s outdoors. Once you meet Brigette, it’s apparent why she was selected the winner from among 1,200 entries. She is a poised and accomplished young woman, who stole the show by singing a Christmas song and playing her violin.
The next morning I attended the Oregon Breakfast, in the Member’s Room of the Library of Congress. This event was hosted by Oregon’s senior senator, Ron Wyden, who was joined by Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Greg Walden. The Travel Oregon team brought some of the best Oregon has to offer with Stumptown Coffee, Bob’s Red Mill oatmeal and even donuts that were specially made “Portland-style.” Brigette took center stage again at this event with a lively reading of her winning entry in the governor’s essay contest, a poem about her love for all things Oregon, including puddle-jumping, hiking, fishing and Christmas-tree-cutting.
I met Brigette’s mother, Kim Harrington, at the breakfast. Kim is a fourth-grade teacher who takes her class to the Tillamook Forest Center for a field trip each year. She was grateful for OFRI’s school bus reimbursement program, which helps make the trip possible.
Later that day same day I attended an afternoon reception at the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). A little-known fact is that, in addition to supplying the “People’s Tree” for public display, Oregon provided an additional 75 smaller companion trees for offices and federal agencies around the Capitol. The Whitten Patio of the USDA features one of these trees. It is 22 feet tall and also decorated with handmade Christmas ornaments from Oregon. At the bottom of the tree is a beautiful handmade tree skirt that came from the Gone to Pieces Quilt Guild of McMinnville.
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue spoke at this event and introduced another Oregon treasure, Nikki Swanson, a district ranger from the Sweet Home Ranger District. Nikki traveled with the U.S. Capitol Tree on its journey from Sweet Home to D.C. She described her experience of 20 consecutive days of joy, during the tree’s journey and at local events across the country. I jokingly asked her after she spoke if there weren’t some moments of stress along the way. She told me that every time a problem came up, everyone worked together to find a solution.
The tree-lighting itself took place a couple days later on Dec. 6. House Speaker Paul Ryan handed over the honor of lighting the tree to Brigette (on the right in the photo). Visitors from all across America stood in near-freezing temperatures and cheered after a brief countdown when the flick of a switch lit up the tree’s thousands of lights.
The 2018 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree will be on display on the West Lawn of Capitol Hill until New Year’s Eve. During that time it will serve as a stunning showcase of Oregon’s natural beauty, our forests and the enthusiastic spirit of the Oregonians who made this gift to the nation possible.
Erin Isselmann
Executive Director
The New Year is coming soon, and with it come two mass timber events you might want to mark your calendars to attend.
The first is the Oregon Mass Timber Development Summit, scheduled for Jan. 15, 2019, at the Salem Convention Center. This one-day event is being presented by the TallWood Design Institute and Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency. The summit is designed to help public officials, economic development folks, investors and manufacturers (or manufacturer wannabes) learn about multiple facets of the mass timber industry. Speakers will discuss tools, strategies and potential partners available to help support sector development for the use or production of mass timber and related products in Oregon counties and municipalities. I’m on the planning committee, so I’m privy to the content development for the event, and I can say with confidence this summit offers a lot in the way of learning about the mass timber sector. It will identify opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors to become a part of the sector. The topics are well-thought-out, and the speaker list represents a wealth of knowledge. If the topic of mass timber and how you might get involved intrigues you, I recommend you register before the spots run out.
The date for the summit was strategically chosen because it falls about two months before the fourth annual International Mass Timber Conference comes to Portland on March 19-21 at the Oregon Convention Center. If the summit is the appetizer, the Mass Timber Conference is the entrée, the veggies, the sides, the wine, the dessert and the next day’s leftovers. OFRI is a co-sponsor and I’m on the steering committee, but even if we weren’t involved I’d be recommending this for anyone interested in learning about the current status of the mass timber movement. It is produced jointly by the Forest Business Network and WoodWorks, and the organizers expect at least 1,500 people (more than three times the number who attended the first Mass Timber Conference in 2016) to come to Portland for three jam-packed days of tours and presentations. Last year’s 800-plus attendees came from more than 20 countries, including as far away as Australia. With 20 concurrent panel discussions and three general sessions over two days, the conference will bring more than 80 mass timber experts from around the world to cover a wide range of topics.
The conference steering committee is still putting the finishing touches on the various panels, but I can say that sessions will include deep dives into a number of important topics. These include the carbon story of mass timber, cost comparisons of wood buildings compared to concrete and steel construction, lessons learned on where maximum savings can be realized, and mass timber design and detailing. There will also be sessions addressing the latest information around fire safety, seismic and acoustics research, tall wood code changes, hybrid construction projects, mass timber supply chain insights, latest developments internationally, and much, much more.
You should plan to attend – and make sure to come well-rested, because it can be an exhausting three days of nonstop learning and networking. Also, fair warning: The building tours typically sell out quickly, so if you plan to attend and you want in on a tour, you probably should register now.
I look forward to seeing you at one or both of these premier mass timber events coming early next year. Until then, happy holidays.
Timm Locke
Director of Forest Products
Earlier this month I had the distinct pleasure of representing OFRI on a trade mission to China led by the Oregon-China Sister State Relations Council (OCSSRC). The entire mission lasted three weeks, and I was able to join for about a week from Nov. 4-10.
The target of the trade mission was Oregon’s Chinese sister province of Fujian. Fujian is in southeast China on the country’s Pacific Coast. Like Oregon, it has prominent mountain ranges (including the Wuyi Mountains), is dissected by a major river (the Min), is mostly forested and has strong agriculture, including dairy, rice and tea, and manufacturing sectors. A great fit as our sister state.
The timing of the trade mission coincided with the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. At the expo there was an Oregon booth and a Softwood Export Council (SEC) booth. OFRI’s participation in the trade mission was covered by our membership in the SEC. I was not able to attend the expo due to my late arrival in China, but a million other people did. The expo is a huge symbol of the opening up of the Chinese economy to the world, and of the thirst their burgeoning middle class has for imported goods.
The trade mission was led by Oregon State Rep. David Brock Smith from Port Orford, a strong supporter of active forest management to achieve healthy forests and a robust forest sector economy (he specifically requested OFRI’s participation in the mission), as well as Clackamas County Commissioner Ken Humberston, who is very interested in mass timber building and production. Other delegates included Dr. Jim Johnson of the OSU College of Forestry, a delegate from the Port of Portland, delegates representing Oregon tourism, and three delegates from the OCSSRC.
On my first full day in China, our group took a bullet train from Shanghai to Wuyishan city in the Nanping municipality of Fujian province, to attend the 9th China (Fujian) - U.S. (Oregon) Seminar on Green Development, Tourism, Investment and Culture. The seminar opened with a welcoming banquet. The food was incredible, and the atmosphere was warm and friendly. My five words of Mandarin, along with smiles and gestures, got me through simple introductions, but having some great translators really helped with communication.
The Chinese treat their guests very well in general, but we were treated like royalty. There were several courses to the banquets, lots of toasts, and handing out business cards with two hands while smiling and bowing. I had my business card translated into Mandarin on one side as suggested by our OCSSRC leaders, and this really impressed our hosts, who generally have English on the reverse of their cards. It impressed them almost as much as my dexterity eating with chopsticks. They gave me an A for effort, but the servers usually brought me a fork and knife. Gift-giving is also part of Chinese culture at these events; I received several gifts of world-famous Wuyi black and jasmine tea. I gave away OFRI books and videos. All were happily received.
The main meeting of the seminar was put together by the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Nanping Municipal People’s Government. In addition to a general session with speeches by our Oregon delegation leaders and their Fujian counterparts, there were concurrent sessions on green development and tourism. A Mandarin-language version of OFRI’s Forest to Frame video was shown in the general session, and all in attendance were well impressed. Jim Johnson and I both gave presentations during the green development session. My presentation was titled “Oregon’s Sustainable Forests” and included discussion of timber types and ownership, timber harvest by owner group, forest protection laws and mass timber. The Chinese Foreign Affairs Office had my PowerPoint translated into Mandarin along with my English words. It was really cool to hear the translator repeat my words in Mandarin. One of the high points for me was Jim Johnson and I being interviewed by Nanping City TV after the conclusion of the seminar.
The leaders of Fujian province are interested in building with mass timber – or at least interested in talking about it. They are very focused on green development and see using wood in construction as part of that. And, from what I observed, there’s certainly a lot of construction going on in the region. We saw an incredible number of apartment buildings going up. Some were more than 50 stories tall, while many are 20-plus stories. We literally saw hundreds of construction cranes in five days. But all the new buildings I saw appeared to be built out of concrete, brick and steel. If just 1 percent of these were built of mass timber, it could take a lot of wood.
After a visit to Wuyishan Mountain Park, the sister park of Crater Lake National Park, and a ride down the Min River on bamboo rafts, we headed by bullet train to Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian province. In Fuzhou, we had a seminar and news conference with Fujian Provincial United Chamber of Commerce, where we learned about the province from the business leaders. The high point of this day was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the governments of Oregon and Fujian.
Forestry is an interesting enterprise in Fujian province. The landscape of Fujian is steep and dissected, and mostly covered with trees. It reminds me of the Oregon Coast Range. Most of the native forest in Fujian province and much of China has been logged over the last millennia or so, with reforestation being a concept that only got going about 30 years ago. Most of the forests are therefore young. They are mostly owned by the government. Logging is generally prohibited, and forest management consists mainly of tree planting. Major tree species that have been planted include sugi (Cryptomeria japonica),which resembles Pacific yew in leaf shape but Douglas-fir in growth and tree form, dawn redwood (Metasequoia sp.), an ancient deciduous relative of California redwood that has golden leaves at this time of year, and Chinese red pine (Pinus massonia), which is reminiscent of ponderosa pine. All three of these species have tremendous potential as timber trees.
When we visited the Fuzhou Mountain resort high above the city of Fuzhou, we saw some very ancient planted Cryptomeria cuppressus trees, a relative of the sugi tree that looks more like an evergreen dawn redwood, that were estimated to be about 1,500 years old. There is a temple where tourists leave tokens of honor to the ancient trees. I left an American and a Chinese coin in recognition of the potential of these two great nations working together. This temple and others I saw on the trip were generally timber-framed in a post-and-beam style that made me think of the modern mass timber buildings that are being built in Portland and elsewhere.
At the top of the mountain, it was almost like a cloud forest. As we started down the mountain at sunset, we had a birds-eye view of Fuzhou with the lights coming on, and could really see the size of this great city. I felt that future building in these huge and growing modern Chinese cities, using mass timber grown in sustainable forests, might be a huge improvement for our planet.
That night, the Fujian provincial government hosted a final dinner for our group. It was a very special dinner, and many speeches and toasts spoke of the 35 years of friendship between Oregon and Fujian, a relationship that was started under the leadership of former Oregon governor Vic Atiyeh.
I’m back in Oregon now, and while I’m very glad to get home, I also have a new appreciation of our friends from across the Pacific who build huge cities with giant apartment buildings, have a great respect for trees and love wood. There just has to be a way they could build these buildings out of Oregon mass timber.
For the forest,
Mike Cloughesy
Director of Forestry