Private forests in Oregon did not suddenly change recently, but management of them did. As of July 1st, the Oregon Forest Practices Act governing logging on private land contains a bunch of new provisions. Chief among them is greater protection for streams in private forests, and that required an updating of state maps and some other moves.
The new regimen, set in motion by the Private Forest Accord, also includes a program to improve fish habitat in streams; it comes with the catchy acronym of S-FISH. We learn more about the practices, their implementation, and the incentives of S-FISH in a chat with Thomas Whittington and Josh Hanson from the Oregon Department of Forestry.