Professional Forest Management

In 1971, Oregon became the first state in the nation to pass a set of forest practice laws to safeguard water, fish and wildlife habitat called the Oregon Forest Practices Act. The laws govern everything from building and maintaining forest roads, to harvest activities and reforestation requirements.

The rules have been updated more than 40 times with guidance from professional foresters and scientific experts. Recently, the timber industry and environmental groups signed an agreement called the Private Forest Accord that includes the most comprehensive changes to Oregon’s forestry regulations in 50 years and makes Oregon’s rules the most modern and technologically advanced of any state.

The Accord increases water quality protections and habitat for aquatic species that call Oregon home, while providing operational certainty for Oregon’s cornerstone industry and ensuring economic security for rural communities. The changes cover everything from increased no-harvest zones next to streams for shade and water filtration, to forest road upgrades that improve fish migration upstream, to state-of-the-art computer modeling of landslide-prone hillsides, to millions of dollars of state and private sector investment for creation of wildlife habitat.