Forest Watch and Restoration
Groundtruthing
Bark’s network of volunteer groundtruthers help us monitor every logging project in Mt. Hood National Forest and surrounding public lands. Groundtruthing involves exploring and documenting an area proposed for a timber sale (or other project type) by the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management. The information that is collected enables Bark and the public to assess how accurately the agency’s project documents describe the forest and the impacts. By providing more transparent and accessible information, Bark supports the public to understand and engage in decisions about public lands management. Groundtruthers can and have found discrepancies in agency information and located rare or threatened plants and animal species leading to the cancellation of some or all of the proposed logging.
Post-logging Monitoring
Logging operations have immense impacts on the water and soil quality, even beyond the logged area. To mitigate these impacts, the Forest Service uses protocol known as Best Management Practices (BMPs) or Project Design Criteria (PDCs) which should be implemented during logging operations. In Bark’s post-logging monitoring program, Bark volunteers visit timber sales during and after logging to evaluate whether the logging companies are practicing these federal? criteria and whether the PDC’s effectively or sufficiently mitigate the logging impacts. Bark volunteers have consistently recorded data that show PDCs are often neither implemented nor effective in mitigating logging’s impact to the forest.
Beaver Habitat and Wetland Restoration
We need your support to restore wetlands and help beavers return to Mt. Hood.
Forest Advocacy Campouts
Summer volunteer campouts in Mt. Hood National Forest to bring our community together in the forest and increase our access and capacity for monitoring logging projects. Camp activities include a program of invited speakers and presenters who share their work so that as we spend time together in the forest, we can connect to other issues as well.
