The OSU draft management plan for the McDonald-Dunn Forest is not acceptable. You people are like the Japanese whaling business, trying to fool the public into accepting your reckless moneygrubbing by passing it off as “research”. 

Clearcutting 40 percent of McDonald-Dunn is insane and despicable.

There is so little old growth left in Oregon that 100% of it should be protected. The feeble protections in the plan don’t even provide buffers needed so the clearcut damage doesn’t kill supposedly protected ecosystems indirectly. There is no reason to believe the plan will address climate change seriously. 

OSU College of Forestry’s flagrant conflicts of interest are outrageous.

You make plans and ignore them. You make promises and break them. You have Stephen Fitzgerald still contributing to “plans” after continuing to attempt to justify the 2019 flagrant old growth clearcut violation of public trust even well after the interim dean admitted it was a “mistake”. You have zero credibility. This “plan” is an insult. 

The State of Oregon should take over management of State owned lands being mismanaged by the OSU College of Forestry, since they refuse to respond to the public. 

Read the analysis by Friends of OSU Old Growth and make a meaningful response. 

Read their list of main shortcomings of the plan: 

• violates ethical standards of the university by having research forest staff (whose salaries depend on continued logging) play a primary role in developing the plan

• perpetuates clearcutting across at least 40% of the forests instead of shifting to ecological forest management

• allows clearcuts of 40 to 80 acres (“long-rotation” vs. “short-rotation”) compared to the 2005 plan (which limited the size of cuts in the southern portion of the McDonald Forest to four acres in size)

• fails to provide any commitments to reduce or eliminate the widespread burning of logging slash, a major source of pollution and GHG emissions

• relies on continued, widespread use of poisonous herbicides at the discretion of forest managers

• perpetuates fragmentation of the forest by ignoring watersheds and ecological zones of the landscape in land allocations

• diminishes protections for older trees and stands by removing the previous (160-year) cutting limit throughout the forest, giving considerable discretion to OSU’s forest managers to cut older trees

• changes the old-growth reserves to allow logging for a variety of reasons, including “public safety” and to create/maintain, “structural and compositional diversity”

• relies heavily upon (“Woodstock”) forest modeling which is widely regarded as promoting wood fiber production over ecological values

• relies on the relatively low standards of the Oregon Forest Practices Act (OFPA) as the primary constraint for forestry activities

• includes very limited accountability and enforcement standards (other than the OFPA)

• downplays the sequestration of forest carbon while echoing industry propaganda re: carbon storage in wood products

• promotes polluting, ecologically-destructive biomass energy as a “renewable source of energy”

• promotes the false idea that frequent thinning and clearcutting maximizes the sequestration of forest carbon (in violation of well-established science)

• relies on outdated research and flawed surveys which downplayed negative public perceptions of clearcutting

• uses inaccurate modeling which excludes carbon stored in the soil (a major omission skewing the assessment of management scenarios in favor of logging)

• promotes a skewed biodiversity metric which relies on a limited number of taxa, rendering the conclusions arbitrary

• contradicts established scientific research on “wildfire resistance” by relying on an inaccurate model (which showed little difference between scenarios with more mature forest vs. plantation forestry)

• defines forest “stewardship” as simply, “meeting or exceeding all laws“

• fails to define what constitutes “sustainable forestry” and conflates it with sustaining timber production (e.g. stating, “Harvest activities must not cause degradation in forest health and sustainability over time” – while ignoring the damaging impacts of clearcutting)

• reveals an arrogant and unrealistic response to climate change with statements like, “Threats such as climate change…will be actively managed and mitigated as appropriate.“

• promotes misinformation regarding logging money funding research and recreation in the forests (when records show only ~1-2% of logging revenue goes to these uses)

• provides only a modest increase in the older forest classification (from ~4 to 10% of the forest) in defiance of community sentiment which overwhelmingly supports protecting a significant portion of the forest

• portrays public involvement in the planning process in a misleading and biased manner (e.g. by stating the draft plan, “reflects the diversity of ideas brought forth by college, university, and community members during the plan development process in a meaningful way“)

• ignores the substantial community opposition to OSU’s past forest management practices and OSU’s biased approach in the current planning process

• uses modeling that falsely concluded OSU’s continued reliance on even-aged, monoculture tree plantations will increase the resilience of the forests

• claims that the plan will provide accountability, while providing very little in the way of tangible constraints or independent review

• promotes the “Vision, Mission, and Goals” of the research forests – a document developed behind closed doors intended to codify industrial forestry practices throughout OSU’s public research forests 

I’m tired of smelling slash burn smoke and I’m tired of worrying about wildfires and droughts exacerbated by College of Forestry’s disregard for watersheds. I’m tired of being insulted with timber industry talking points.

"As a career forester with decades of experience managing both public and private forestlands—and as someone who has mentored and supported numerous OSU College of Forestry students—I am compelled to express concern with several key shifts in the proposed McDonald-Dunn Forest Plan.

The plan more than doubles the acreage designated as “Late Successional Reserves,” significantly expands “long-rotation” forestry, and reduces the area allocated to “short-rotation even-aged” stands to less than half of previous levels. These changes, combined with a reduction in expected harvest volumes from 6 MMBF to 4.3 MMBF annually, represent a substantial departure from a balanced, working forest model.

While I fully support the inclusion of reserves and long-rotation stands as part of a diverse forest landscape, the current proposal risks limiting the forest’s capacity to serve as a dynamic, hands-on training ground for future foresters. The McDonald-Dunn Forest should be a living laboratory—one that actively demonstrates the full spectrum of forest management strategies, from uneven-aged thinning to short-rotation harvests, and everything in between.

A sustainable harvest target of 6 MMBF annually is not only ecologically viable, but also essential for maintaining a robust educational platform. It allows for a variety of silvicultural prescriptions to be implemented and studied in real time, giving OSU students the opportunity to engage with the complexities of forest management as practiced across ownership types and objectives.

This is not a call to industrialize the forest. Rather, it is a call to ensure that the forest remains a place where students can learn how to manage for multiple values—timber, habitat, recreation, and carbon—through active, adaptive management. That kind of experiential learning is only possible if the forest is actively managed across a range of stand types and rotations.

I urge the planning team to reconsider the current allocations and harvest targets in light of the forest’s educational mission and the broader need to train foresters who are prepared to meet the diverse challenges of modern forest stewardship."

"Comments:
1. The land allocation study outlined in Appendix G appears flawed in a number of ways.
a. Scenario B that allocates more land to shorter rotations results in a net revenue of $426,000 as compared to the baseline of $1,000,000 despite a 14% increase in acres. This is nonsensical. Committing more land to a shorter rotation presumes that a harvest of older stands would be necessary to move more land into the shorter rotation process which would result in increased harvest and increased revenues in the short term. Furthermore, all discounted cash flow (DCF) models prefer cash now to cash in the future. Due to this inherent bias in DCF, short rotation forestry is a value-maximizing strategy as evidenced by intensely industrialized forestry favoring 40-year rotations to 50+-year rotations and consistently working to shorten rotations further. That Scenario B is the 2nd lowest performing land allocation in the Net Revenue metric is puzzling, as this scenario should generate the highest Net Revenue of any of the scenarios tested. This indicates that something in the modeling is seriously flawed and the inputs for economic analysis should be examined (discount rate, price appreciation, large-log premium, growth, etc.)
b. The justification for choices made for the second round of modeling (Page 152) contains a false statement. “Because prior model runs suggested that two of the management strategies, multi-aged, multi-species and even-aged, long rotation led to higher scores on each of the eight metrics of interest,…” This statement represents that Scenario C and Scenario D universally performed better than Scenario A (baseline). However, a review of Table G3 shows this to be untrue. Scenario C (favoring even-aged, long rotation) performed worse than Scenario A in Forest Products (5.1 vs 5.5), Net Revenue ($812,000 vs $1,000,000), Resilience - Density (2.59 vs. 2.87), and Resilience – composition (2.54 vs. 2.58). Scenario D (favoring multi-aged, multi-species) performed worse than Scenario A in Forest Products (4.2 vs 5.5), Net Revenue ($550,000 vs $1,000,000), and Resilience - Density (2.68 vs. 2.87). Furthermore, though it wasn’t identified as a “metric of interest”, both Scenario C and D result in fewer jobs than Scenario A.
c. Given the flaws noted above, there seems good reason to investigate the modeling and discover why it gave answers that appear to be incorrect. If the modeling is wrong, the conclusions drawn from the modeling and the decisions made from the modeling will be misinformed.
2. The management plan is missing key data. As a professional forest manager and certified Tree Farm Inspector one of the key pieces of data the I would want in any forest management plan is information regarding forest inventory. The management plan lacks information regarding estimated timber volume by species, estimated timber volume by land management objective, estimated growth, etc. The only data given is a “sustainable harvest” of 4.3 MMbf/year, with no supporting information. This lack of information is appalling.
3. The report states that economics are a key aspect of the plan, with the summary on the website noting that recreation is allowed, but the forest is “not a park”. However, several aspects of the report indicate that economics were not adequately considered.
a. The land allocation substantially harms the economic viability of the forest. Lands are moved out of revenue generating allocations and into cost incurring allocations (such as late-successional forests and ecosystems of concern). This management choice was made with what appears to be little thought in how to replace the revenue foregone. The plan identifies a 226% increase in late-successional forests, a 60% decrease in short-rotation forests, and a 17-28% decrease in sustainable harvest. This represents a monumental shift in the management plan.
b. There does not appear to be a minimum amount of revenue identified as necessary to pay for staff, maintenance, and minimum responsible management. Without this clear benchmark, the forest is at risk of running a deficit. There is also not a clearly defined average revenue goal. Both should be included.
c. Alternative revenue streams are acknowledged as possible, but the strategic plan should more strongly identify the economic need to guide the selection process. Much is made in the report of the recreation value of the forest. This recreation uses revenue for administration, maintenance, signage, etc. yet it generates no revenue. As a minimum, the possibility of charging for an annual pass (free or reduced for students at OSU) should be identified in the report as the most readily available untapped source of revenue and a priority for investigation. Given that the tone of the report indicates that recreation and local residents were instrumental in the shift away from timber harvest (revenue generating) to restoration and late-successional uses (cost incurring) it seems that these users of the forest should bear the costs of this shift so that sufficient revenue is available for maintenance, employee salaries, research, administration, etc.
d. The identification of selling carbon credits seems at odds with current OSU journal articles, namely DeLuca, Thomas H. “Perspectives. Forests, Carbon, and Climate Change: Why Our Obsession with Monetizing Forest Carbon May Be Counter Productive.” Forest Ecology and Management, vol. 586, 15 June 2025, article no. 122691.
4. The report identifies policies for co-stewardship with Indigenous Peoples and states of Page 51 “In co-stewardship partnerships with Tribal Nations, the college will acknowledge and support Tribal data sovereignty. Any guidance and direction provided to the college by Tribal partners that involves sharing their Indigenous Knowledge will be protected via MOUs and data sharing agreements, in keeping with best practices for partnering with Tribal Nations.” This seems to be directly at odds with the goal stated in Section 3.2 “This plan was developed with the intention of providing a framework that will continuously create conditions favorable to a wide variety of learning opportunities.” OSU exists to discover and disseminate knowledge. If the Indigenous Knowledge used in managing the MacDonald-Dunn Forest is valuable, why should that knowledge not be shared and why should the tribes engaged in these efforts not want their knowledge used to educate students and the public? What’s more, why would OSU agree to suppress knowledge gained from use of the research forest? This seems antithetical to the purpose of the forest, the college, and the university."

Hello, I would like to submit some feedback on the draft 2025 McDonald-Dunn Forest Plan. I appreciate the work that went into preparing the plan and how the 11,500 acres of the McDonald-Dunn Forest are actively managed to support “research, education and practical solutions for public agencies, private landowners and the forest industry.”

However, I am concerned about the lack of protection for the old-growth forest remnants that have comprised just 3.8% of this forest as reserves. Page 69 states, “Input received from the community during the plan development process 2022-2025 indicated strong interest in expanding the acreage of older forest.” Old-growth forests develop with minimal human disturbance, and natural ecological processes shape the forest structure over long periods. Managing 3% of the stands included in the late-successional or even-aged, long rotation management schemes will not protect or recreate complex old-growth forest ecosystems. It is very misleading to say, “The 2025 Forest Plan designates an additional 810 acres to late successional forest, for a total of 1,160 acres in this management strategy dedicated to ensuring older forest characteristics…” Existing old-growth forests do not require any active management and, in fact, would be degraded by many elements of “vegetative management.” Continuing to protect the reserves will serve as a true baseline of what an old-growth forest is and support the research and educational mission of the College.

Five management strategies are described in the plan, and all of them include tree harvests.

• Even-aged, long rotation forests will include 30% of the McDonald-Dunn Forest and will be “managed to provide older forest conditions and produce larger, high-quality wood for domestic mills.”

• Twenty-three percent of the Forest is to be managed as multi-aged, multi-species landscape using a combination of pile burning, broadcast burning, and herbicide treatments… for site preparation” as well as periodic thinning “to increase vertical and horizontal structure, maintain health, and provide interim revenue.”

• Ten percent of the forest will be managed on even-aged, short (~35-45 year) rotations and “rotation lengths will be regulated primarily by age that maximizes net revenue production.”

• Late-successional forest (10%) includes former reserve areas that “will be stewarded as needed to maintain older-forest structural and compositional diversity and to provide for public safety, (e.g., hazard tree removal, fuels management) and invasive species control. Younger stands newly added to this strategy may need more active operations in the near term (e.g., variable retention harvests) to promote the development of older forest conditions.”

• Another 10% of the Forest will be managed as ecosystems of concern focused on native oak savanna/woodlands, prairies/meadows, and riparian/aquatic systems, and treatments will include limited harvests, native vegetation planting, and herbicides to control invasive species.

Clearcut harvests will not exceed 40 acres in multi-aged, multi-species and even-aged, long rotation plots or 80 acres in even-aged, short rotation plots – “with limited exceptions due to large-scale disturbances.” It is not clear what is meant by large-scale disturbances.

To address changing climatic conditions, the plan proposes to use two forest management approaches: mitigation and adaptation. I was really surprised to read these plans on page 76. Forests themselves can sequester carbon, but when they are cut down to produce biomass, the process and resultant products (e.g., wood pellets) put more carbon into the air than burning coal (Buonocore et al. 2021; Vanhala et al. 2013). Intensively managing forests does not always make them “more resistant and resilient to uncertain future disturbances”; it can also make them more vulnerable to disease and wildfires. Page 78 states that “…many areas within the McDonald-Dunn Forest would benefit from fuel reduction treatment (mechanical and prescribed fire) in advance of dry climatic patterns and wildfire.” Old growth forests have a higher moisture content and are more resistant to wildfires; logging can dry out what remains of forests and makes them more prone to wildfire (Schick and Burns 2020). Logging for fuel reduction can negatively impact wildlife habitat, remove large fire-resistant trees, introduce invasive species, and create hazardous fire conditions. Better strategies to mitigate wildfires include implementing land use planning that considers fire risk, creating defensible space around homes, utilizing fire-resistant building materials, and developing robust evacuation plans. Additionally, many silviculturists are trained in the science of wood production, and more recently in fuels reduction, not in how to achieve and maintain the structure and function of old-growth or any other natural forests. Consequently, they see a fire-infrequent mature or oldgrowth forest in terms of excessive tree densities and competition and propose thinning. Competition among trees facilitates selection of the most vigorous trees, which may enhance their ability to adapt to climate change (Magalhaes et a., 2021). Clusters of 200 to 600 year old trees are almost certainly collaborating, rather than competing with each other, through integrated belowground systems of roots and mycorrhizae (Gorzelak et al. 2015).

Page 82 states that “On average, yearly herbicide use under the 2005 Forest Plan involved application on approximately 4% of the McDonald-Dunn Forest. A similar amount is expected under the 2025 Forest Plan.” Local communities rely on surface water for their drinking water. When forests are cut down, watersheds become contaminated. Trihalomethanes are produced when chlorine is added to the water in order to control natural organic matter, made significantly worse by run-off from timber harvests. Not only does the water taste bad, it is bad for human health, affecting reproductive, nervous system, liver and kidney functions, as well as causing colorectal and bladder cancers (Oregon Dept. of Human Services, Environmental Toxicology Section, 2004; Tovar & Susa, 2020). Forest management practices include the broad-scale use of herbicides to minimize competition for Douglas fir. They are usually sprayed as a mixture of different active compounds (e.g., atrazine, 2,4-D, glyphosate, chlorpyrolid, triclopyr, hexazinone) as well as inert ingredients (e.g., defoamers, sticking agents, surfactants, solvents). These chemicals are difficult to quantify in drinking water, because it is hard to know what specifically was applied and when. The product descriptions are frightening and often contradictory (for example, sulfometuron methyl has a “high potential for reaching surface water via runoff for several months or more after application” but, it should be applied “as a preemergence or early postemergence spray during the rainy season…”). Research to explore alternatives to herbicide use would be a great way to utilize and simultaneously conserve the McDonald-Dunn Forest and its Oak Creek watershed.

Sincerely, Ursula Bechert, DVM, PhD

"Dear OSU Forest Planning Committee,

I have been an avid trail runner for most of my life. I am also an active mountain biker and have volunteered with Team Dirt and done OSU trail work. Nearly everyone I know who uses the forests are REALLY upset about how you guys ""manage"" (i.e. log) them! The problem is most people 1) are VERY cynical of OSU and especially the guys who manage these forests 2) know that your entire system is corrupt and don't expect it will change, and 3) are afraid of losing access to the forests. This last item is a BIG one! I know a number of Team Dirt people who've basically said they don't want to complain because they are afraid OSU will quit working with Team Dirt. The same goes for runners who help organize the Mac 50K. They generally DETEST the clearcutting you guys are doing and things like your use of herbicides and burning debris. But they don't want to make too much noise about it because the deans and his cronies through the years have THREATENED very obviously, time and time again to take away public access!

You should ask yourselves what kind of system this is when NO ONE trusts you all! From the president on down to the folks managing the forests, your entire system is focused on how much money OSU makes (as if that is the most important thing). When Oregonians don't trust you, you have COMPLETELY failed!!! You are public employees, after all!

So, PLEASE stop clearcutting (which everyone knows is not a valid research basis)! Protect ALL of the older forest (everything over 60 years ought to be protected from ALL logging! Start paying attention to forest carbon, wildlife, and good, meaningful research (not the industry-funded crap research you do).

Also, I attended some of your previous planning meetings, but it is SO VERY CLEAR that you people just DON'T LISTEN!!! We've had world famous scientists criticizing your approach and calling your model ""crap"" (I think), and yet you keep doing the same damn thing. Why didn't your forest planning team SIT IN FRONT OF THE PUBLIC at the planning meetings?! If you all are going to craft this plan that has SO much clearcutting, you ought to at least have the integrity to stand up and take credit for your work! All of you are going to forever be judged in our community for your work on this biased plan. Your scientific reputations will be clouded by it. This will be your lasting impact on our community. Are you all really proud of this?!

Sorry if I'm ranting, but we are SO F*CKING TIRED of OSU ignoring us and destroying the forests we love!!!

(Anonymous because I don't trust you and know you have retaliated against your critics before)."