Fred Swanson Oral History Interviews on the Northwest Forest Plan

Trained as a geologist, Fred Swanson brought a physical processes perspective to work in forest and stream ecosystems and his work at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest led to his engagement in the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment (FEMAT) on topics related to watersheds and Adaptive Management Areas. Swanson begins his oral history by recounting his early childhood in Virginia and Delaware and how his father’s affection for trees (especially in the yard) and his grandparents’ involvement with mining (Michigan) and gravel operations (Wisconsin) may have influenced his career path into geology and forest ecology. He describes exposure to interdisciplinary field research in Bermuda as an undergrad at Penn State as quite influential and how that carried into the highly interdisciplinary work at the Andrews Forest as part of the International Biological Program in the 1970s and then the Long-Term Ecological Research program. He reflects on how experiences along the way gave many opportunities to work in interdisciplinary groups, such as a field project in the Galapagos Islands in 1971. He mentions people who influenced him early in his career, such as Dick Janda of the US Geological Survey, where Swanson worked for a year between undergrad and grad school (U. of Oregon).

Swanson discusses his history of research at volcanoes and in Cascade forests with extensive clearcutting and roads, all on the general theme of disturbances in landscapes. That includes participation in the Blue River Landscape Management study and other activities in the Central Cascades Adaptive Management Area as part of implementing the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The topics include use of natural disturbance regimes as reference for study and design of management systems. He outlines how Jerry Franklin’s New Forestry ideas stemmed from biological legacies observed in the post-eruption Mount St. Helens landscape. He recounts stories of how the Andrews Forest was a venue for heated discussions of the future of forests and forestry in the region involving people with wildly different views. He discusses his own mixed views of logging, and, also, how logging of native forest in the Andrews changed through the transition between having a regular timber program to cutting for research purposes only. Interactions with the national forest managers gets close attention in keeping with its great importance to the Andrews Forest and its influences on land management practices and policy. This leads to discussion of engagements of the arts/humanities with the Andrews Forest program, and various key pieces of science thinking leading up to the NWFP, including fire history, landscape pattern change (e.g., Franklin’s work with Richard Forman of Harvard), and the work of Jim Sedell and Chris Maser on large wood in rivers. He describes how many field trips based in the Andrews were public forums for discussion of the future of forests and forestry.

Swanson segues into discussion of his arm’s-length exposure to President Clinton’s Forest Summit and participation in FEMAT. He describes how his attention was focused on the Andrews Forest while the Spotted Owl committee, Scientific Advisory Team, and Gang of 4 (plus 2) processes were underway, but during that period many field tours and related communications activities with National Forest colleagues played an important supporting role so public, the media, elected officials and others could get a sense of the science and the issues in the field. He elaborates on studies of forest-stream interactions and their role in the Aquatic Conservation Strategy and on issues related to the scale of forest planning. Next, he discusses how participation in FEMAT prompted a series of studies (many at Andrews Forest) about how network structures in landscapes (especially road and stream networks) operate and interact with the patchwork of cutting units and forest stands. He also speaks about adaptive management – it’s origin and application in AMAs, including the Andrews. These were all topics shared through many interactions with the public, elected officials, including members of Congress, and others.

He closes the interview with comments on the key Federal environmental legislation of the 1970s and its influences on Federal lands policies that rolled out a couple decades later culminating in the NWFP in such an amazing way and set of circumstances. He speaks about the amazing constellation of people in many institutions in the Corvallis area who were involved, and how the NWFP had some wide-ranging impacts elsewhere.

Trained as a geologist, Fred Swanson spent his career starting in 1972 working as first an OSU post-doc and then a Research Geologist with the PNW Research Station studying responses of watersheds to natural (e.g., wildfire, flood) and management (e.g., clearcutting, road construction) disturbances. He teamed up with ecologists to study forest-stream interactions on topics such as roles and dynamics of large wood in rivers. Much of this work occurred in the Andrews Forest and in the context of the research-management partnership centered there with staff of the Willamette National Forest. He succeeded Jerry Franklin as Principal Investigator of the Andrews Long-Term Ecological Research project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. During the late 1980s and early 1990s in a period leading up to and following formulation of the NWFP, Swanson helped lead scores of field tours at Andrews Forest for discussion of research findings and future options for federal forest land management. During FEMAT he worked in the Aquatic/Watershed and Adaptive Management Groups and facilitated interaction with the Willamette National Forest, which supplied GIS layers of alternative riparian reserve configurations, using material from landscape planning projects of the research-management partnership.