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Geos Institute helps communities build resilience in the face of climate change

Author: eric Gotfrid

Klamath-Siskiyou Study: Protecting old-growth can stave off global warming

If global warming occurs in the coming years as many scientists predict, the stands of big mature trees on local public forestlands could help save our bacon. That’s the upshot of a recently released peer-reviewed study of the Klamath-Siskiyou region in southwest Oregon and northwestern California by a University of Central Florida scientist and the Ashland-based Geos Institute.  MORE>

Opinion: Saving an Owl from Politics

 

The imperiled northern spotted owl faces extinction if efforts enacted to save it continue to put politics ahead of science.

The Scientist, Magazine of Life Sciences

By Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D.

No other species symbolizes the “war-in-the woods” over logging vs. forest protections better than the northern spotted owl. The owl was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1990 due to destruction of its forest habitat by logging. Unchecked logging at the time, as well as ongoing mechanization of mills that accelerated the speed at which trees could be processed by fewer workers, would have soon eliminated nearly all older forests along with forestry jobs. Historic logging levels also would have severely impacted the owl population, possibly eliminating it altogether, throughout most of its range.  MORE>

Bald eagles rebound from near extinction

Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian

A bald eagle glides low, curving with the meandering sloughs of Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge in Southeast Portland.  At the former St. Johns landfill northwest of downtown, workers track a breeding pair that has nested in a black cottonwood tree for the past four years. An estimated 500 to 700 bald eagles winter in southern Oregon’s Klamath Basin, where they feast on waterfowl that have likewise migrated south down the Pacific flyway.  Bald eagles are back, baby.  read more >

Mature & Old-growth Forests Hold Keys to Adapting to Climate Change

Contact: Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, Geos Institute, 541-482-4459 x 302; 541-621-7223 (cell); Reed Noss, Ph.D., Prof. of Conservation Biology, Univ. of Central Florida, 407-489-5778

Ashland, Oregon – Scientists released new findings today on the importance of mature and old-growth forests in preparing the Klamath-Siskiyou region of southwest Oregon and northern California for global climate disruptions. Published in the January edition of The Natural Areas Journal (Volume 32: 65-74) by the Natural Areas Association, the study calls on regional land managers to protect mature and old-growth forests as an insurance policy for fish and wildlife facing mounting climate change pressures from rising temperatures, declining snow levels, and reductions in fog along the coast.

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Owl vs Owl

As one encroaches more and more on the habitat of the other, scientists and federal officials consider multiple alternatives.

by Paul Fattig, Medford Mail Tribune

Wildlife biologist Paul Henson acknowledges the prospect of killing even one barred owl doesn’t sit well with him. “I’m a bird person — to be put in a position to have to shoot one charismatic and beautiful bird to save another charismatic and beautiful bird is very difficult,” said Henson, who heads the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s northern spotted owl recovery program in Oregon. “But the alternative is letting the spotted owl go extinct,” he said of what amounts to a Sophie’s choice.     read more>

U.S. Proposes to Save Spotted Owl with Chainsaws and Shotguns

by Erik Stokstad, ScienceInsider

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) today formally proposed several actions, some of them controversial, to aid the iconic northern spotted owl, an endangered species in the Pacific Northwest whose population continues to shrink. The proposals include designating more critical habitat, encouraging logging to prevent forest fires, and an experiment to shoot a competing owl species.   read more>

Centers Track Global Deforestation, Ashland-based Geos Institute Will Help Launch Web Database

By Paul Fattig, Medford Mail Tribune

The Ashland-based Geos Institute and the Conservation Biology Institute in Corvallis are teaming up to create an online center to track deforestation around the world. Known as the Global Forest Information Center, it will be on the Internet in a data-sharing system known as Data Basin — databasin.org.

The conservation institutes recently received a $50,000 grant from a private foundation to start building the cyberspace center, initially focusing on intact forests in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The information, including maps, is expected to be available to policy makers, land managers and the public beginning this fall.   read more >

New Global Forest Information Center

Contacts:
Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D., Chief Scientist & President, Geos Institute, 541-482-4459 x302
James Strittholt, Ph.D., President & Executive Director, Conservation Biology Institute, 541-757-0687 x 1

Ashland, OR – Scientists from the Geos Institute, Ashland and Conservation Biology Institute, Corvallis are building a first of its kind global forest-tracking center designed to monitor and call attention to the world’s alarming deforestation footprint. The Global Forest Information Center will be housed in a state-of-the art and Internet-based conservation data-sharing system developed by the Conservation Biology Institute (CBI) that was publicly launched in 2010. Known as Data Basin (databasin.org), the system already contains over 8,000 conservation spatial datasets for environmental monitoring.

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Plan Needed for Southern Oregon Coho Salmon

Oregon Wild Takes Legal Action for Coho Salmon

KOBI Ch. 5 TV (Medford, OR) news story by Travis Koch

To see the TV news commentary by Brian Barr, coordinator of the Freeways for Fish Program at Geos Institute … click here and then click on the center of the video image.

New Forest Management Plan Weakens Wildlife Protection

By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Back in the 1980s, when conservation advocates were trying to stop logging in old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, they relied on a 1982 regulation that required the National Forest Service to protect wildlife such as the spotted owl throughout its range. They won, and a new Northwest forest plan in 1990 greatly reduced logging in the region’s old-growth forests on federal land.   Read more>