Winter is a crucial time for Oregon’s forests. The season’s cloudy, wet and cold days foster the explosion of new growth we see in spring forests by invigorating trees and plants with plenty of moisture. Winter is also the height of tree-planting season in Oregon’s forests.

Every year, forest landowners plant millions of trees across Oregon. Most are planted to replace trees harvested to make wood products. Others are planted to help restore forestland burned in wildfires.

The much-anticipated fourth edition of Oregon’s Forest Protection Laws: An Illustrated Manual, which includes information about recent updates to state forest practice regulations, is finally here!

As my time working for OFRI sets like the summer sun, I am reminded of the incredible opportunities the agency provided me with through its social media and outreach internship. I started the internship in February 2023 during my junior year as an undergrad at the University of Oregon. Now, with my bachelor’s degree in hand I am heading to the big city of Chicago. Before I leave, I’d like to share my favorite adventures and some of what I’ve learned during my time at OFRI.

Hello! My name is Henry Thomas, and I am the new social media intern for the Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI).

When you picture a recently harvested forest, bees and wildflowers might not be the first things that come to mind. But at Portland-based Hampton Lumber, a growing initiative is turning clearcuts into pollinator havens.

For many of us, the bald eagle conjures the image of a majestic sky predator. Folks rarely think of a freshly hatched, defenseless puffball. However, the pipeline from puny to powerful only takes three months. Let’s start at the beginning. Making a house a home

Image Welcome to OFRI’s new and improved website, including our blog.

Image The signs are everywhere.

Image The arrival of spring (finally!) reminds us of the restorative power of nature, powered by what so

Image This past weekend, May 19 and 20, kicked

Image If you live in Oregon’s western “wet side” you are surrounded by a rock star of a tree,

"We do forestry right in Oregon, and we should all be proud of that." That's what Sara Wu, the director of the World Forest Institute, said when accepting the International Business Award from the Oregon Consular Corps (see story). What a refreshing comment. In an era where lawsuits against forest landowners still make headlines, Sara's comment is a great reminder of how far the forest sector has come. That's not to say we always get it right or there isn't more to learn. We're learning every day, and forest practices change to keep up with the times. As we built our new website, I was amazed to learn that the Oregon Legislature has amended the Oregon Forest Practices Act 20 times since it was first passed in 1971. And the Oregon Board of Forestry has modified the administrative rules and regulations dozens of times...

The threat of shifting regulations injects an unknown quantity into business planning that gives a business owner reason to pause before investing in new projects, new equipment or new people, all of which spell j-o-b-s. That’s what’s happening right now with logging roads. Last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reclassified logging roads as “point sources” of water pollution. The impact of that ruling could require forest landowners to get industrial discharge permits, typically required of factories and sewage plants, for each drainage pipe or rainwater ditch on thousands of miles of logging roads across Oregon. This is a network of roads and stream crossings that has seen tens of millions of dollars of investment to meet Oregon’s tough water quality standards. A permit system would impose significant new costs and expose landowners to legal costs associated with challenges and lawsuits...

The stories and photos coming out of Colorado are horrific: Eleven wildfires. Thousands forced to flee. Hundreds of thousands of acres scorched. Millions of dollars of property damaged. The most destructive of the 11, the worst in Colorado’s history, is the Waldo Canyon Fire that charred 18,000 acres around Colorado Springs, destroying 346 homes and killing two. Can it happen in Oregon? This summer marks the 10th anniversary of the Biscuit Fire, which consumed a half-million acres in southwest Oregon. In the summer of 2002, major fires were already burning across Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, and these drew firefighting resources away from the Pacific Northwest...

The pall of smoke yellowed the sky along the Front Range of the Rockies. We could see it from our west-facing windows as our jet approached Denver from the north. It was the last week of June, and my wife and I were flying to Colorado for vacation. We’d heard about the fires, but their reality hit much closer to home as our plane descended. The High Park fire, as it was known, west of Fort Collins, eventually would destroy 259 homes and consume more than 87,000 acres of forest. At the time, it was already the most destructive forest fire in the state’s history in terms of property damage....

Thank you for your support and feedback about OFRI’s new website. It’s certainly come a long way, thanks in large part to our development partner, DHX Advertising. Together we’ve worked to create a site that is both visually interesting and informative about Oregon’s abundant forestlands. There is a lot to learn and play with on the site, so if you haven’t taken the time to explore, by all means do so. There’s more to come, too. Our ongoing mission for OregonForests.org is to make it more interactive, more interesting and, above all, more significant for Oregonians. We have a number of features we are planning to expand. And, what better way to accomplish that than to involve you in the process...

Snuggled up among the roots of a 200-year-old oak tree last week, my kids and I tapped our toes along with the film “Happy Feet” at The Oregon Garden’s outdoor amphitheater. The film’s main characters are penguins and, of course, are not native to Oregon, but the state’s forests were also part of the evening’s entertainment. Before the movie began, we were treated to a spectacular preview: The summer sun set over the garden’s grove of majestic Oregon white oak trees. This grove began growing before Lewis and Clark first explored Oregon. In the trees we could see holes drilled by busy acorn woodpeckers storing nuts for a winter meal. When I pointed them out to the 8-year-old next to me, his comment was, “Winter! But I thought the summer just started?” I couldn’t argue....