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Public commenters press board for stronger performance measures, transparency on FMP
Summary
Public testimony at the June meeting pressed the board to include climate leadership in its work plan, finalize performance measures before FMP adoption, and increase transparency on public input and implementation details.
Public commenters at the June 3 Oregon Board of Forestry meeting urged stronger accountability and more explicit board oversight of the Forest Management Plan (FMP).
Scott Phillips, a volunteer with 350PDX, said the board work plan omits sufficient 'climate leadership' items and listed specific topics he wants added: review of ODF's implementation of Executive Order 2526, the five‑year climate change and carbon plan update, the Natural Climate Solutions fund, and forest carbon accounting. "I believe this is inadequate to realize the climate leadership priority," Phillips said in his three‑minute comment.
Several other community and stakeholder speakers raised related concerns. Laura Wilkinson said the timing and extent of redlined changes in the draft FMP suggested insufficient public vetting and warned that approving the plan without finalized performance measures would undercut accountability. Darlene Sherman (350PDX) asked how the board could approve the FMP in July while performance measures would not be finalized until the fall, calling the sequencing 'puzzling.' County and industry representatives urged clarity on how the plan will deliver revenues to counties and sustain local mills while meeting conservation commitments. "How will lands outside the HCA achieve the model harvest outcomes?" one commenter asked; another called for more specificity on performance measures and targets.
Board members acknowledged the public concerns and debated whether to require a 10‑year implementation plan or board‑approved performance targets before finalizing the FMP. Staff said implementation plans and linking performance measures to annual operating plans would provide the operational details, and that modeled outcomes tied to IPs would be presented in January and in subsequent board briefings.
The public comments underscore a central tension in the FMP process: the desire for binding near‑term specificity from affected counties, operators and communities, versus the agency’s framing of the FMP as a higher‑level document to be implemented through downstream plans and policies.
