"Hebo" sounds so exotic to me - but maybe just because on a map it looks far from my home in Eugene. And, while Oregon Wild works closely with the Siuslaw National Forest on may projects through collaboration, the Hebo Ranger District of the Forest is farther afield and our staffs had never met. We came closer together yesterday when we toured part of the North Nestucca Restoration Project.

The proposed project would do restoration thinning in young plantations, previously clear cut, to enhance future old-growth habitat. It would also do associated restoration projects like improve fish passage through old culverts, add important habitat features like snags and down wood to unhealthy plantations, and add additional diversity of tree species in plantations and riparian areas.

Much of this proposal is pretty usual for the Siuslaw, though it's always nice to get on the ground to see the specific areas in question. And, it turns out, the forests around Hebo are fun to explore because of the charismatic Sitka spruce and old-growth alder trees along our route.

The Sitka spruce are there because of the proximity to the coast - they only grow in the "fog zone" near the ocean. (There's some great old-growth spruce in the Cummins Creek Wilderness on the Central Coast.)

The alders, it turns out, are there for a very different reason. Back when the Nestucca valley was being extensively settled, in the mid and late 1800s, a series of hot fires started by the pioneers burned through much of the area. By the time the fires were done, fast-growing alders had become well-established in many parts of the watershed. These pure alder stands successfully shaded-out any intrepid conifers and the trees grew large and old. Now, nearly 30% of the Nestucca watershed is dominated by large alders nearing the end of their usual 100-year life-span.

The question at hand is complicated. What do you do in these dying alder stands? Nothing? That's a logical answer, since that would be the natural process. Thousands of acres would then be left as dense shrub-lands for decades, as conifers and other alders struggle to compete with thickets of elderberry and salmon berry. Is this desirable in an area that is so bereft of habitat for threatened spotted owls and marbled murrelets? Or, one could argue that in light of the human forces that created these conditions, human intervention could be used to give healthy forests a head start by cutting the shrubs and planting alders or a variety of conifers - but this is very labor intensive and would result in heavy impacts on the ground.

The answer won't be easy to determine, and we're not sure what the right one is. Certainly it won't be one-size-fits-all. For now, the Forest Service is taking things slow and only proposing a few experimental treatments in a few small areas of alder. We'll continue to work with them to develop a proposal that makes sense for the forests, wildlife, and waters that make the Nestucca such an interesting and beautiful place.