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CORVALLIS - Four Oregon scientists have received a total of $670,000 in grants from the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry for work intended to provide practical information and approaches to sustainable forestry that can serve the needs of forest managers, practitioners and policymakers.

Three of the grants were made to researchers in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, and the funding provided to Oregon scientists was more than one-third of that given to researchers across the entire nation.

The commission is managed by the National Council for Science and the Environment.

"These projects will push the frontier of sustainable forestry and for the first time bring a comprehensive, nationwide research program to bear on refining the biodiversity standards used in assessing sustainable forestry," said Hal Salwasser, dean of the OSU College of Forestry.

The Oregon projects which were funded and their principal investigators include:

• Steven Radosevich, an OSU professor of forest science, will lead a four-university team to assess the lessons learned about managing forests for biodiversity and sustainability based on practical experiences. It will create a database and report outlining the existence, scope, methods and effectiveness of different federal, state, local and private programs in the U.S. that contribute to biodiversity.

   

• Thomas Spies, a courtesy professor at OSU and researcher with the USDA Forest Service, will head a team that includes several OSU researchers that will evaluate the science of forest biodiversity policies, including carbon storage effects and the role of ecosystem restoration in conserving biodiversity. Ecosystem restoration has been used as an approach to restore natural fire regimes, watershed function, or eliminate exotic species, and understanding its impact on biological diversity is essential to devising and applying sustainable forest management practices.

   

• K. Norman Johnson, an OSU professor of forest resources, will lead a team that includes scientists from the University of Oregon and University of Washington in evaluating the needs and requirements for decision support systems, to determine what types of decision support systems exist for use in sustainable forestry and biodiversity management, and how they are being applied.

   

• Rebecca McLain, also an Oregon researcher with the Institute for Culture and Ecology, will lead an effort to assess knowledge about non-timber forest product management impacts on biodiversity in four different eco-regions of the nation.