Forest Service Legacy and Cascade Head BR Offer Waypoints to the Future

The Cascade Head Biosphere Region has both biodiversity conservation and human development.

The first group of 29 biosphere regions in the United States were designated in 1976. Of those, 12 were on lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). A scientific committee led by forest ecologist Dr. Jerry Franklin saw the USFS network of experimental forests, ranges, and research natural areas and their diverse ecological landscapes as prime locations to propose biosphere regions. By 1991, 20 additional biosphere regions (one of which merged and subsumed two others from the 1976 group) had been recognized by the international Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB), for a grand total of 47 in the U.S. Nineteen were coordinated by the National Park Service, 12 by USFS, and 16 by other private, state, or federal agencies.

In 2013, the MAB Programme implemented a periodic review process to update the status of all biosphere regions and maintain their recognition by MAB. By 2017, 19 of the 47 then-existing U.S. biosphere regions ultimately chose not to conduct a periodic review and withdrew from the program. A disproportionate share of those withdrawn, 10 of the 19, were USFS-coordinated biosphere regions. After initially playing a strong role in the U.S. MAB program, the Forest Service is now the lead entity only for Cascade Head BR in Oregon and Luquillo BR in Puerto Rico. Although USFS lands still make up significant parts of many current U.S. biosphere regions, USFS participation in the network has diminished considerably since its beginnings in 1976.

Cascade Head Biosphere Region, with its complex social and ecological landscape, is a perfect place to develop the concept that biodiversity conservation and human development are two sides of the same coin. It provides lessons in the importance of applied research, stakeholder collaboration, and landscape-scale, multiple-use management.

The mosaic of public lands managed by the Siuslaw National Forest and private timberlands in the 75 square mile watershed of the Salmon River demonstrate the linkages between forest management and restoration of wild salmon. Endangered species like spotted owls and marbled murrelets share the landscape with hikers, hunters, fishermen, and mushroom harvesters. Lincoln City and Neskowin are hubs of a thriving tourist industry. Native American tribes are slowly restoring their cultural practices in the area.

Experience at Cascade Head suggests that increasing the engagement of the U.S. Forest Service in the U.S. Biosphere Network could bring the agency’s contemporary strengths in collaborative, ecological, multiple-use forest management to bear on the challenges of many biosphere regions to significantly strengthen the network.

Bruce A. Byers, Ph.D. [e-mail]

Byers was the 2018 Howard L. McKee Ecology Resident at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon. His book of essays, The View from Cascade Head: Lessons for the Biosphere from the Oregon Coast, will be published by Oregon State University Press in the fall of 2020.