Oak Restoration – A Major Milestone Reached

We are fortunate in having remarkable oak stands in our Mt. Richmond Forest.  Conserving these oaks requires active management by us.  They are only there as a result of active human management over hundreds of years – in the form of native Americans regularly and deliberately burning the lands in order to keep competing trees, like douglas fir, from overtopping and killing the oaks.  With Indian burning a thing of the past, in this place, the oak have been at risk of dying from lack of that vital ingredient – sunlight.

Over the past twenty years, we have worked to save the Mt. Richmond oaks by carefully removing the light blocking fir trees.  This spring we completed the fifth and final phase of this work by removing 261,000 board feet of fir that threatened oak dispersed through 60 acres of the central part of the forest.  We were fortunate to work with Brandon Epling and the rest of his fine Forest Enterprises crew.  This project and prior projects greatly benefitted from our ongoing partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Yamhill Soil and Water Conservation District.