Grant funded project of Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) to research improved methods of fuel hazard reduction promoting forest health and carbon sequestration centered around on-site biochar & other stewardship in Southern Oregon. Our restoration forestry practices will be used to treat four sites in southwest Oregon in 2021-2022 while training a cadre of practitioners and document
ing impacts. Forest thinning to reduce fuel loads will be followed by making biochar in portable kilns, contour placement of larger logs, return of the char to the forest, and finally prescribed burning over the three years of the project. After a century of public policy to suppress fire, western forests hold an immense overburden of flammable fuels that industry and government officials increasingly acknowledge must be reduced. These fire-adapted ecosystems were traditionally managed by indigenous peoples through regular low-intensity burns, which reset favorable conditions for harvestable plants and prey animals. To restore the adaptive use of fire to limit danger and enhance forest health, we must embrace a period of transition during which hundreds of millions of acres must be rid of their excess fuel burden. More information, job and volunteer applications, webinars and more resources available on our website at https://pina.in/fire-ecology-restoration-project/.
