Providing context on topics impacting Oregon forest management. We are unapologetic advocates for the forest sector who believe forestry is part of the solution to Oregon’s biggest challenges. We’re subject matter experts who take pride in our ability to distill complex forestry topics into manageable information. We may challenge what you think you know. You may not like what you hear, and we’ll talk about issues that make us uncomfortable, too. Trust our information is grounded in science, facts, and practicality about the forest sector. Send questions to podcast@ofic.com.
That's Wild: The High Cost of Gridlock in Federal Forest Management
What happens when years of collaborative forest restoration work get tied up in litigation — and wildfire gets there first?
OFIC President Chris Edwards sits down with Travis Joseph, president and CEO of the American Forest Resource Council (AFRC), for a candid conversation about Oregon’s historic 2026 wildfire season, the Grasshopper Fire on the Mount Hood National Forest, and the challenges facing federal forest management across the West.
At the center of the conversation is the Grasshopper Restoration Project, a collaboratively developed fuels treatment and forest restoration project on the Mount Hood National Forest. After four years of work where the collaborative got to consensus on treatment, Oregon Wild sued the U.S. Forest Service over the project, contributing to delays that prevented the planned treatments from being completed before the Grasshopper Fire burned through the area.
Chris and Travis explore what the case says about active forest management, wildfire prevention, environmental litigation, NEPA and federal forest policy — and tackle bigger questions about climate change, forest health, conservation, the political influence of anti-forestry activist groups and whether decades-old policies are still producing the environmental outcomes Americans want.
It’s a frank discussion about wildfire, public lands, collaboration and what it may take to rethink forest management in Oregon and across the West.
30 Jan 2026
Facts Optional: A Case Study in DEQ’s data spin
In this episode, Katie Murray, Executive Director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter (OFS) returns to the podcast, but this time to host a conversation with Isabella Nelson, recent graduate from Oregon State University (OSU) with an honors bachelor of science degree in environmental chemistry and a minor in toxicology, and Dr. Kim Anderson, professor from the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at OSU. They discuss Isabella’s internship project with OFS which highlights how the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s flawed data analysis and misuse of environmental monitoring results can lead to inaccurate and warped conclusions. Isabella discusses her scientifically accurate analysis of data produced by the Pesticide Stewardship Partnership, a decades old program designed as a targeted, voluntary effort to identify local water quality issues and support education for pesticide applicators. The podcast explores how DEQ began using the program’s data inappropriately to make broad regional conclusions that inflate concerns over pesticide use and undermine trust. Isabella and Kim provide recommendations to refocus the program by applying sound science, improving data transparency and ensuring environmental policies are based on accurate, meaningful analysis that truly benefits both water quality and communities as the program as intended.
29 Jan 2025
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Advancing Mass Timber in Oregon
In this episode we interview Chris Evans, president of Oregon's newest mass timber manufacturer, TimberLab, (https://timberlab.com/)who played a major role in the new mass timber ceiling at the Portland International Airport (PDX). We talk about everything from what mass timber is, the history of using large wood in construction, the construction speed advantage of wood buildings that utilize cross laminated timber, mass plywood or other mass timber, the environmental benefits, challenges to larger scale adoption and what policymakers can do to advance this emerging technology. For more information on mass timber, visit the Oregon Forest Resources Institute's page on mass timber (https://oregonforests.org/forest-products/mass-timber-building) or visit ThinkWood (https://www.thinkwood.com/?hsa_acc=4890703031&hsa_cam=19109494552&hsa_grp&hsa_ad&hsa_src=x&hsa_tgt&hsa_kw&hsa_mt&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1).
8 Mar 2024
Busting the top six myths about the timber industry
This episode with Sara Duncan, Director of Communications for the Oregon Forest Industries Council, takes on the top six myths about the timber industry, including:
1. Tree farms are not forests, and the timber industry only plants a monoculture of Douglas-fir.
2. Clearcuts are unnecessary, you could just thin forests instead.
3. Logging is the number one source of carbon emissions in Oregon and older trees sequester more carbon than young trees.
4. The timber industry cuts down trees for toilet paper.
5. All timber companies in Oregon are owned by out-of-state, wall street investors like TIMOs and REITs.
6. The listing of the spotted own didn't cause as many job losses as the industry said, it was actually automation.
24 Jan 2024
The 2024 Wildfire Funding Proposal: Getting the Story Right
In this episode, Senator Elizabeth Steiner, Senate co-chair of the full Ways and Means Committee in the Oregon Legislature, discusses a work group she convened that OFIC's Kyle Williams participated in after the end of the 2023 legislative session. The work group was tasked with exploring ways to address Oregon's wildfire funding crisis that has been building for years, and resulted in a concept that will be put forward as a bill (House Bill 4133) under consideration in the upcoming 2024 legislative session. Sen. Steiner and Kyle discuss the elements that led to formation of the work group, who participated and why, how they developed ideas, and the details of the proposal (including one element that will not move forward). Toward the end of the episode, Sen. Steiner also addresses the incomplete reporting about the workgroup by the media.
Two short clips (part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBVCP_0eCFA&t=14s), part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNT6Is4d0CY&t=21s)) can be found on our YouTube channel.
Table of Contents
Background
4:23 – 13:33 The history (and context) that lead to creation
of the workgroup.
13:34 – 16:03 Where fires are starting and where acres are
burning.
16:04 – 21:04 What happened at the end of the 2023 session
that resulted in not continuing the $15 million landowner offset?
21:05 – 23:40 Why have conversations on wildfire funding
failed in the past?
23:41 – 29:44 How the workgroup came together, who was
involved and the process/guidelines for the workgroup conversation.
29:45 – 33:56 Why weren’t there more people involved in the
conversation?
33:57 – 45:52 How the proposal came together, the three
principles that lead to consensus.
The proposal
45:53 – 50:24 One piece of the proposal that isn’t moving
forward.
50:25 – The pieces of the proposal that are moving forward
in the bill (HB 4133).
56:14 – 59:04 What the $10/tax account wasn’t paying for and
how landowner rates would be reduced.
59:05 – 1:00:20 The primary driver that will reduce
landowner per acre rates.
Responding to media coverage
1:00:21 – 1:03:25 Did Sen. Steiner do this for political
reasons, because she is running for Treasurer?
1:03:26 – 1:08:09 Did contributions to Sen. Steiner’s PAC
influence the proposal? Was it a quid pro quo?
1:08:10 – 1:15:10 Does this proposal shift the financial
burden for wildfire from big corporations to average Oregonians?
1:15:11- 1:17:28 How does wildfire funding in Oregon compare
to other states?
1:17:29 – 1:20:56 Did one company “write the proposal”/did
one entity have more influence over the proposal than others?
1:20:57 – 1:23:15 Sen. Steiner’s experience with two
reporters who have covered this issue.
1:23:16 – 1:25:11 Concluding remarks/what’s next.
5 Oct 2023
Free to Grow: How pesticides help trees grow
This episode with Katie Murray, executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter, and Seth Barnes, director of forest policy for
the Oregon Forest Industries Council covers all things related to pesticide use in forestry, including: how pesticides (primarily herbicides) are applied either aerially or with a ground crew roughly two to four times in the first few years of a new forests’ life to hold back invasive species and noxious weeds. We also cover the regulations in the Oregon Forest Practices Act related to reforestation and water quality protection (including new protections put in place by the Private Forest Accord), what happens when applicators don’t follow the law, the process for notifying the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) and neighbors about forest activities, water quality monitoring studies, how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assesses health risks and registers pesticides, what’s on a pesticide label, the carcinogenicity of glyphosate (Roundup), and impacts to pollinators.
7 Sept 2023
It all starts in the soil
This episode with Dr. Tom DeLuca, dean of the Oregon State
University College of Forestry, focuses primarily on carbon sequestration and storage in forestry and forest soils. We also discuss a whole range of topics surrounding carbon, including the history of forestry as a practice, the carbon cycle of forests, how long carbon is stored in wood products, the carbon benefits of mass timber like cross laminated timber and mass plywood panels, the human connection to trees and wood products, the impact of active management on carbon stored in soil, the symbiotic relationship between soil and trees, and the impact of different land uses on carbon in soil.
1 Jun 2023
What is the Oregon Forest Resources Institute?
This episode with Jim Paul, the newly appointed Executive Director of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, discusses the institute’s three primary program areas (public education, K-12 education, and landowner education), as well as how OFRI is funded, the institute’s response to former Governor Kate Brown's request for a 2021 audit by Oregon Secretary of State Shamia Fagan, and implications of a bill in the 2023 Oregon legislative session.
7 Apr 2023
Are We Putting the Forest to Sleep? An update: Coho lawsuit and a minor correction
As a follow-up to our two previous episodes that focused on the history of state forest lands in Oregon and the state’s pursuit of a Habitat Conservation Plan, this episode discusses the recent terms agreed to by the state to settle a lawsuit filed by environmental organizations over alleged impact the state’s forest management activities have to coho salmon habitat. The episode also includes a minor correction to statements made in the first episode on this topic (Are
we putting the forest to sleep? Part 1: History of State Forests) that clarifies when former Governor Kitzhaber challenged the Oregon Department of Forestry to achieve twin goals of increased revenue and increased conservation.
15 Mar 2023
Are we putting the forest to sleep? Part 2: What went wrong
This is the second in a two-part series on Oregon’s state forests, including the current controversy surrounding the Department of Forestry’s pursuit of a Habitat Conservation Plan for western Oregon state forests, the plan’s failure to provide adequate projected timber harvest levels to keep the Department of Forestry’s budget afloat for the next 70 years, and the mounting pressure on the Board of Forestry to change course.
15 Mar 2023
Are we putting the forest to sleep? Part 1: History of State Forests
This is the first in a two-part series about Oregon’s state forests, including the history of how the state acquired over 600,000 acres of forest from 15 forest trust land counties in the 1930s and 1940s, the progression of management approaches and issues on those forests over the last seven decades, and what lead the state to pursue a Habitat Conservation Plan for western Oregon state forests that aims to both protect threatened and endangered species like the northern spotted owl and coho salmon and increase financial stability for the Department.
** please note: there is a minor correction to this episode in Are We Putting the Forest to Sleep? An update: Coho lawsuit and a minor correction (https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/gLBhingAOyb)
23 Feb 2023
One Foot in the Black: Part 2 – The deep dive into Oregon’s firefighting system
This is the second in a two-part series on wildfire in Oregon, including the unique and world-class elements of Oregon’s wildland firefighting system (known as the complete and coordinated system), it’s unique and complex funding mechanism paid in part by private timber companies and in part by taxpayers through the General Fund, and ways the state can work with the federal government to address our wildfire crisis. For more details on how Oregon's firefighting system is funded, please see this two-page explainer document (https://ofic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/fire-funding-explainer.pdf).
23 Feb 2023
One Foot in the Black: Part 1 – Why are Oregon’s skies so smoky?
This is the first in a two-part series on wildfire in Oregon, including what’s causing the wildfire crisis in Oregon, what role climate change plays in our smoky skies, the different firefighting and land management approaches of private landowners and federal landowners, and how we might begin to take on treating Oregon’s forests with thinning and controlled burns, and creating defensible space and hardened homes in our communities to make Oregon more fire resilient.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
8 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 34 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
43
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
60
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