The Restoration Bargain · Episode 5 of 13 · 21 min
Individuals, Clumps, and Openings
A thinned stand can be right on trees per acre and still be spatially wrong, because evenly spaced survivors are the signature of a thinning crew, not of fire. The episode explains ICO, for individuals, clumps, and openings, from its research lineage to how a marking crew applies it tree by tree. It then turns to the disputed reference condition on which the whole restoration program rests.
Who's who
- Derek Churchill+1 more episodeWashington DNR scientist; lead author of the ICO paper and field guide
- Andrew Larson+1 more episodeForest ecologist who co-wrote the 2012 review naming the openings-clumps-trees mosaic
- Jerry FranklinUniversity of Washington forest ecologist and co-author of the ICO papers
- Paul Hessburg+1 more episodeForest Service scientist behind landscape evaluations and core principles
- James Agee+1 more episodeCo-author of the 2005 framing paper with Hessburg and Franklin
- William Baker+1 more episodeUniversity of Wyoming scientist and leading critic of the reference-restoration consensus
- R. Keala Hagmann+1 more episodeLead author of the 2021 thirty-author consensus paper
- James JohnstonLead author of a 2016 paper acknowledging scale limits of the framework
Where it happens
- Eastern Cascades, WashingtonSource of the reconstruction plot behind the original ICO prescription
- Oregon's eastern CascadesLandscape of about 400,000 hectares where the dispute is sharpest
- Colville National Forest, Washington+8 more episodesOne of four reference-data regions in the ICO guide
Timeline
- 2005Hessburg, Agee, and Franklin publish the framing paper on Interior Columbia Basin landscapes
- 2012Larson and Churchill name the mosaic problem; Baker publishes his eastern Cascades reconstruction
- 2013Churchill and colleagues publish the foundational ICO paper
- 2016The ICO implementation guide appears
- 2017Washington's 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan sets a 1.25-million-acre target for 2037
- 2021Hagmann and twenty-nine co-authors assert a consensus
Still debated
How open these forests were and how much fire was severe is unresolved: Hagmann and colleagues cite converging evidence of widespread change, while Baker, Williams, Hanson, and DellaSala argue from land surveys that dry forests were denser and burned more severely. Both sides are peer-reviewed and each accuses the other of omitting evidence.
