A group in Bend is working to buy what could become the first community forest in Oregon.
The Deschutes Basin Land Trust is hoping to take advantage of a new state law that allows local governments to set up special bonding authorities to help buy private forests that would be managed for the public through a combination of logging and recreation.
The idea has brought together local conservationists, government leaders and timber companies -- all interested in preserving forestland in fast-growing Central Oregon, where developers have converted thousands of acres into housing complexes and resorts.
"If you're looking to maintain working forestlands, the world's changing rapidly and you can't get a better example of that than Bend," said Tom Tuchman, a Portland timber consultant working with the trust.
The parcel in question is the nearly 33,000-acre Bull Springs tree farm, a vast pine forest between Bend and Sisters in the Cascade foothills. In addition to serving as winter range for thousands of mule deer, the area has provided saw logs for about 80 years, most recently under the ownership of Crown Pacific.
The Portland-based wood products company filed for bankruptcy in 2003, and its creditors set up a concern called Cascade Timberlands to take over Crown Pacific's 522,000 acres of timberland.
The land trust expects Cascade to sell 293,000 acres between Bend and Klamath Falls, including Bull Springs, in the spring. The holding company last month sold 82,000 acres of former Crown timberlands on Washington's Olympic Peninsula to about a half-dozen different buyers.
The Bull Springs property is zoned for forestry so its development potential isn't great, said Brad Chalfant, executive director of the land trust. But he said the tree farm could become a target for luxury homes and golf courses if the county expands zoning for destination resorts.
County commissioners approved the community forest authority last week at a hearing packed with more than 100 supporters and just one opponent.
Here's how it works: A government, in this case the county, creates a local authority that sells revenue bonds. The authority then loans proceeds from the bonds to a private nonprofit group, in this case the land trust, to buy the land. The nonprofit group then repays the loans with timber revenue from the property.
"Basically what you get is a lower cost of capital in exchange for a public purpose, and in this case the public purpose is a sustainable forest," Tuchman said.
The land trust probably will set up a subsidiary to manage Bull Springs, which it's calling Skyline Forest. Timber harvest levels would be set by the new nonprofit agency's board, made up of community members from various backgrounds, Chalfant said.
The trust is seeking private donations to finance the purchase.
It would like to buy Bull Springs outright, Chalfant said, but is considering joining with a large timber management company to buy up all of the region's nearly 300,000 acres of former Crown Pacific lands and then carve off the Bull Springs parcel as a community forest.
Besides logging, the new Skyline Forest would be open for recreation such as hiking and biking in the summer, and the trust would invite local schools for field education. It would preserve residents' views of unbroken forests west of Bend and to the Cascade peaks.
"This is one of the fastest-growing parts of the country, and this, I think, sends a powerful message that there is a strong interest here in encouraging a sustainable pattern of growth," Chalfant said.
Oregon has used community authorities before to set up local hospitals. Freshman state Rep. Chuck Burley, a Bend Republican and timber consultant, applied the model to private forests in a bill signed into law this past summer.
"The way the bill is designed, it would really only work for large, continuous blocks like the Bull Springs tree farm," he said. But "there's a lot of land out there that could be in play" elsewhere in Oregon, he said.
The idea appeals to timber companies that need a steady supply of logs to stay alive.
Forestland fragmentation is the greatest threat to timberland after fire, said John Shelk, manager of the Ochoco Lumber Co.
"Private tracts of forests are in many cases getting converted from their original forest use to high-density subdivisions," he said. "Now obviously this doesn't do great things for water quality, for wildlife or for species diversity."
That's why community forests appeal to environmentalists as well. Tim Lillebo, Eastern Oregon representative for the Oregon Natural Resource Council, said the group's preference would be for the adjacent Deschutes National Forest to absorb the tree farm land.
"But this would be next best thing to having it in public ownership," he said.The Oregonian
