Oregon Dept. of Forestry’s State Forests Division Chief Discusses New Habitat Conservation and Forest Management Plan

The North Coast Citizen recently conducted an interview with Oregon’s Department of Forestry’s State Forests Division Chief Mike Wilson about the agency’s progress on a new habitat conservation and forestry management plan.

According to the report (7-16-23), Wilson confirmed that the agency’s final draft of the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) will be delayed until at least November and clarified why the proposed plan would be more restrictive than that for private forestlands.

Wilson also confirmed that approximately 307 million board feet (MMBF) of timber sold in the past years, most of it sold in 2021 and worth around $140 million overall, is standing across state forests. Timber contracts give purchasers a three-year window in which to harvest the timber, and Wilson said that the amount still standing was “unusual.” Wilson did note that timber companies set their own harvest schedules and that delaying harvest operations, while a possibility, was exceedingly rare and would require his direct approval.

As for new timber sales in the new fiscal year that began on July 1st, Wilson told the North Coast Citizen that the soon-to-be-finalized annual operating plan (AOP) included sales levels of around 180 MMBF. That total is at the higher end of the 165–182.5 MMBF projections in the transitional implementation plan (IP) that went into effect on July 1st. That IP will cover fiscal years 2024 and 2025, with an option to extend for 2026, and will be replaced by a regular, 10-year implementation plan governed by the new forest management plan (FMP) and HCP.