A New Approach to Public Lands

A New Approach to Public Lands: What Can Oregon Learn from Canada’s Community Forests Our neighbors in Canada face many of the same economic and environmental challenges we do here in Oregon, such as rural poverty and steep declines in salmon populations, but community-based management of public land has been working in Canada for over 25 years. Dozens of community forests across Canada provide a full suite of public benefits, including timber, clean water and biodiversity habitat as well as stable economic returns to forest communities. Community forest expert Dr. Gary Bull of the University of British Columbia will discuss the creation, governance, successes, and lessons learned from decentralized natural resource management principles as well as the changing roles of governments, NGOs,industry, and other stakeholders such as universities and nonprofits in forest management.