Diversity in forest management to reduce wildfire losses: implications for resilience

Abstract

ABSTRACT. This study investigates how federal, state, and private corporate forest owners in a fire-prone landscape of southcentral Oregon manage their forests to reduce wildfire hazard and loss to high-severity wildfire. We evaluate the implications of our findings for concepts of social-ecological resilience. Using interview data, we found a high degree of "response diversity" (variation in forest management decisions and behaviors to reduce wildfire losses) between and within actor groups. This response diversity contributed to heterogeneous forest conditions across the landscape and was driven mainly by forest management legacies, economics, and attitudes toward wildfire (fortress protection vs. living with fire). We then used an agent-based landscape model to evaluate trends in forest structure and fire metrics by ownership. Modeling results indicated that, in general, U.S. Forest Service management had the most favorable outcomes for forest resilience to wildfire, and private corporate management the least. However, some state and private corporate forest ownerships have the building blocks for developing fire-resilient forests. Heterogeneity in social-ecological systems is often thought to favor social-ecological resilience. We found that despite high social and ecological heterogeneity in our study area, most forest ownerships do not exhibit characteristics that make them resilient to high-severity fire currently or in the future under current management. Thus, simple theories about resilience based on heterogeneity must be informed by knowledge of the environmental and social conditions that comprise that heterogeneity. Our coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) approach enabled us to understand connections among the social, economic, and ecological components of a multiownership, fire-prone ecosystem, and to identify how social-ecological resilience to wildfire might improve through interventions to address key constraints in the system. Our methods underscore the importance of looking beyond the present to future trajectories of change to fully understand the implications of current natural resource management practices for adaptation and social-ecological resilience to natural disturbances.

Mixed‐severity wildfire and habitat of an old‐forest obligate

“…Results by Charnley et al. () in southcentral Oregon showed that private industry lands had more than three times the percentage area of open‐canopy forest compared to U.S. Forest Service‐managed lands that included thinning trees <53.3 cm diameter, prescribed fire, and no active management. Federal land management practices resulted in forests with more resilience to high‐severity wildfire as opposed to management on private lands (Charnley et al.…”

Explaining gender differences in private forest risk management

“…The characteristics of the ecological system are important for outcomes of forest risk management, but the socio-economic system, including infrastructure, knowledge, institutions, and stakeholders, is also an integral part of forest management (Lindner et al 2010;Beguin et al 2016). An understanding of the socio-economic system is important when identifying barriers and facilitating pro-active risk management that aims to reduce damage to forests in the future (Charnley et al 2017).…”

Historical perspective on the influence of wildfire policy, law, and informal institutions on management and forest resilience in a multiownership, frequent-fire, coupled human and natural system in Oregon, USA

“…We report the current management behavior and forest structure of these five private owners combined, despite substantial within-ownership variation, because of our main focus on cross-ownership group variation and practical limits on data collection. For results highlighting within-ownership variation of this ownership group, see Charnley et al (2017). The study area also historically included two tribal reservations: the Klamath and the Warm Springs.…”