The Oregon State University College of Forestry has drafted a new management plan for the McDonald-Dunn Forest. The 11,500-acre area northwest of Corvallis is primarily used for research, but its 35 miles of trails are open to the public.
Holly Ober, the college’s Associate Dean for Extension and Outreach, said the last plan came out in 2005. She said the new management plan has taken three years to develop, and included input from a variety of partners, including the Oregon Departments of Forestry and Fish and Wildlife, the Benton County parks department, the Greenbelt Land Trust, and tribal representatives.
Ober said while teaching, research and outreach are slated to remain priorities, and recreation access is expected to stay the same, “there are some very new elements that were not on the radar 20 years ago. We've tried to build in some flexibility so that we have opportunities to test out experiments that could help us better understand how to make our forests more adaptable to changing climatic conditions and new stressors such as drought and invasive insect pests."
According to Ober, examples include planting different tree species, including Douglas fir varieties that are better suited to warmer and drier conditions.
The draft plan is available for public comment on the OSU website until July 18.
