Sustainable forestry in the West: past, present and future

B. Bruce Bare, dean of the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington, will discuss the past, present and future of sustainable forestry in the West at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, in the Fisher Conference Center of the Arrillaga Alumni Center. His lecture is free and open to the public.

Bare will discuss how forest management in western North America has undergone a dramatic transformation during the past 15 to 20 years as a basic shift in management philosophy from an agriculturally-based approach to an ecosystem-based approach has occurred. According to Bare, most public forestland managers now favor the latter approach; managers of many private forests continue to support the former. Historically, sustained yield timber management principles have guided forest management practices under the agricultural model while sustainable forestry has emerged simultaneously with the ecosystem-based management approach. Bare will explore the underlying reasons for this shift and examine the consequences of this change.

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