What's on the menu besides WOPR Jr.?

The long-awaited, much-anticipated Western Oregon Task Force report was released last week to a collective shrug from all sides of the public lands debate. The general response was: "It took you a year to come up with that?"

Representative Peter DeFazio called it, "A plan to have a plan."

The task force was set up by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to take a closer look at management and forestry issues for the 2.6 million acres of Oregon Bureau of Land Management (BLM) forests. Unfortunately, the task force fell into the same trap that ultimately doomed the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR), it chose to narrowly focus on overcoming hurdles to the continued flow of cheap public lands timber rather than prioritize uses and values.

Finalized in the waning days of the Bush administration, WOPR was a roundly criticized plan to dramatically increase logging of previously protected areas such as streamsides and old-growth forest reserves. Secretary Salazar wisely chose to withdraw rather than defend this illegal plan, but the task force he created to evaluate alternative paths failed to look at the big picture. Rather than trying to find management solutions that allow for both conservation and some timber harvesting, the agency employees that conducted the analysis primarily rehashed the legal and social impediments to increased logging.

What we don't need is a WOPR Jr.

The task force missed the opportunity to take BLM management into the 21st century by emphasizing clean water production, fire and fuels reduction and forest restoration. If done properly, BLM management could continue to provide local jobs and a more sustainable flow of forest products — while also ensuring the continued health of our ecosystems that provide vital services and support a strong outdoor recreation economy.

It's not all bad, though. Some of the task force's recommendations are accurate and constitute a forward-looking approach to the management of the complex issues surrounding BLM forests. The concentration on forest restoration and thinning, for example, while protecting mature forests and quality wildlife habitat, is a positive step in the right direction. Decoupling the BLM budget from the amount of timber production will better enable acreage-based management of these public lands.

However, too many of the recommendations focus on avoiding safeguards for clean water and fish and wildlife in order to increase logging. The narrow focus of the task force will not engender trust nor will it enable collaboratively developed land management, both of which are sorely needed on Western Oregon BLM lands.

The longstanding fixation with intensive logging of BLM forests puts the future of western Oregon's rural economies in one basket, and that basket has become dangerously threadbare. At a time when most rural communities are desperate for economic stability, collaboratively developed, community-driven restoration projects that put folks to work are a much safer long-term bet.

It is no wonder that the BLM is now spinning its wheels trying to figure out what's next. But the BLM needs look no further than its nearest neighbor, the adjacent Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, for some insight.

The Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest has met or exceeded its timber targets for five years in a row by focusing on thinning small trees from overly dense forests. It has embraced community engagement and is working on dozens of restoration projects. Instead of going it alone, this national forest invites collaboration. To be successful, the BLM must learn from its neighbor, which it shares buildings with, and pay more attention to local community needs than to timber industry lobbyists in D.C.

Tackling the backlog of thinning will help forests and communities. A soon-to-be-released report concludes there could be a 35 percent increase from noncontroversial thinning projects in Western Oregon and Washington for a 20-year period. This is the type of forest management that could restore old clearcuts and remove excess fuels in dense forests and provide timber and jobs for many years to come.

There is still so much work to do in these forests. The industrial-strength logging and misguided fire suppression of the past century has left a landscape out of balance. It will take a real effort on the part of the BLM to work with communities and diverse stakeholders to come up with good projects — projects that produce jobs, projects that protect valuable ancient forests, and projects that produce wood as a byproduct of thinning. What we don't need, though, is a WOPR Jr.

Joseph Vaile is campaign director for Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and a former employee of the BLM's Medford District.