NEW EYES FOR A NEW LANDSCAPE

New Eyes for a New Landscape

In Pacific Northwest forests, conflicts between ecological, economic, and social forces paralyzed forest management in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These controversies led to major new forest polices in the region. The Northwest Forest Plan, for example, has brought sweeping changes to forest management and has reduced timber sales in federal forests by almost 90 percent compared to the 1980s. In addition, the listing of certain salmon runs on the Oregon's North Coast has cast a federal regulatory blanket over the entire area.

Tom Spies, co-leader of the CLAMS project

Tom Spies, co-leader of the
CLAMS project (John Ame)

People in the North Coast are asking difficult questions. How much timber is available? How can salmon runs be restored? How can I manage for wildlife and timber goals?

Such questions, until recently, were usually approached on an owner-by-owner, species-by-species basis, with limited information about interactions between policies, people, and ecosystems. What was needed was a perspective for sustainable forestry practices that encompasses whole landscapes and has a broad view of time and geographic space. With advances in remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and steadily increasing computing power, the ideas for taking the long and large view can now be matched with technologies capable of handling them.

A computer modeled landscape of a watershed

A computer modeled landscape of a watershed
(CLAMS project, Department of Forest Resources)

Enter, the Coastal Landscape Analysis and Modeling Study (CLAMS), a new approach to evaluating sustainability that helps scientists, policymakers, and the public understand the potential consequences of different forest practices at broad scales. More specifically, the goals of the study are to develop and evaluate concepts and tools to understand patterns and dynamics of provincial ecosystems, such as the Coast Range, and to analyze the aggregate ecological and socio-economic consequences of different forest policies and strategies across multiple ownerships. The study is trying to anticipate future problems, rather than just focusing on resolving current ones.

Forest cover change simulated over 100 years

Forest cover change simulated over 100 years
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CLAMS integrates remote sensing, inventory plots, GIS, biophysical models, and the needs and goals of landowners. This inclusion of the social aspect is one of the skills that make CLAMS work. Norm Johnson, co-leader of the CLAMS project, says "There is an extremely important social process of joint learning from the maps we progressively produce, which leaves behind the notion that science knows best, and takes a more broad-based approach to finding policy answers."

Combining social and ecological information draws people in; it lets them put themselves in the landscape and become more willing to think about their role in creating the future. CLAMS is creating models of landscape change over time which coalesce data in formats far more accessible to the general public.

Kelly Burnett, fish biologist with the CLAMS project.

Kelly Burnett, CLAMS project
(John Ame)

CLAMS has prepared an animation of forest cover type change over 100 years of simulated landowner behavior. This animation starts with the year 1996 and is based on current forest management policy within each major ownership class in the Oregon Coast Range. The animation, which is 367 KB in size, requires Flash Player version 7 or greater.

Although CLAMS takes a very broad look at the landscape, it still can be practical at very small scales. Decision makers, trying to determine where restoration should occur, often dont have much information as to where restoration might be most effective. CLAMS has refined the idea of High Intrinsic Potential which looks to see how well the basic elements of a landscape can support, in this case, salmon.

For more information, visit the CLAMS website.