4033 SW Canyon Road 

Portland, Oregon 97221 USA 

Phone: 503‐488‐2130 

Fax: 503‐228‐4608 

http://wfi.worldforestry.org 

 

WFI Staff 

Sara Wu, WFI Director 

503‐488‐2130 

swu@worldforestry.org  

Chandalin Bennett,  

Program Manager 

503‐488‐2137  

cbennett@worldforestry.org  

Elikia Amani, Democratic 

Republic of the Congo 

eamani@worldforestry.org  

 

Ke Dong, China 

kdong@worldforestry.org  

 

Sue Baker, Australia 

sbaker@worldforestry.org  

 

Aline Moreira, Brazil 

amoreira@worldforestry.org  

 

 

Volume 9 Issue 1 February 2010

Warm Winter Welcome for a New Fellow

Send us your updates and photos for the next issue!

ChocolateFest 2010: A Sweet Affair

In the coldest months of winter WFI welcomed its newest fellow, Sue Baker, from halfway around the world. Coming from Hobart, Tasmania, Sue left the sunny summer of Aus-tralia to arrive in Portland in January. She will stay at WFI for one year.

Sue received a forestry de-gree from the University of Melbourne, and then went on to earn a Bachelor of Science with Honors, and Ph.D. (which is equivalent to a joint Masters/Ph.D.) from the University of Tasmania School of Zoology. There she studied the conservation of ground-dwelling beetles in forested areas. Since earning her Ph.D., Sue has been working as a biodiver-sity researcher at Forestry Tasmania. Forestry Tasma-nia is co-sponsoring her WFI fellowship, along with Forest and Wood Products Australia, The Gottstein

This year’s Choco-lateFest, held in Janu-ary, attracted over 8,000 people over the three day event. WFC was at capacity with fifty choco-latiers and other vendors set up throughout the cam-pus. WFI Fellows and staff were present in bright red Choco-lateFest tee shirts,

ready to greet and direct guests during the event. With so many people, Miller and Cheatham Hal l s (renamed for the occasion the Chocolate Market and the Chocolate Bazaar, re-spectively) got so crowded that lines were temporarily stalled on Sunday due to fire safety precautions. How-ever, the staff kept their cool and everything ran as smoothly as milk chocolate.

Fellows Aline and Roz work (and play) at ChocolateFest.

Sue Baker enjoys tea at the Port-land Classical Chinese Gardens.

As this is Sue’s first real experience in the U.S., she is excited to explore the forests of the Pacific North-west. “I enjoy the conifer forests, which are so differ-ent from the eucalyptus forests of Australia,” Sue says. If she’s not at the WFI researching Variable Reten-tion silviculture, you will find her out hiking under the Douglas fir canopies.

Trust, and the Harry A. Merlo Foundation. During her stay, Sue will be researching Vari-able Retention (VR) silvicul-ture. “VR silviculture is a new system designed to retain the structural diversity and biodi-versity of timberlands,” Sue explains. “If you clearcut a forest, say on rotation every 80 years, you never regain old growth structure. The idea is to preserve biodiversity and create habitat trees for bee-tles, nesting possums, birds, and other species.” VR silvi-culture was invented in the Pacific Northwest and is widely practiced in British Columbia. There are two main types: dispersed reten-tion and aggregated retention. A relatively new practice in Australia, aggregated reten-tion silviculture, just emerged in Tasmania in 2004. Sue hopes to gain new insight into this practice so that when she returns to Australia she can help keep Forestry Tasmania’s management strategy current.

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Family Forestland Owners Demonstrate Economic Success On Tuesday, January 19th, the WFI Fellows, interns, and program manager vis-ited Little Beaver Creek Tree Farm in Forest Grove, just west of Portland. The tree farm is one of three properties, totaling approxi-mately 500 acres, owned and managed by Anne and Richard Hanschu. Anne’s parents bought the land in 1958 and passed the man-agement onto Anne and Richard in 1978. The Han-

The riparian areas on the property have large buffer zones with little management except planting and protecting trunks from beaver damage. “I’m impressed that just two people are managing the for-est this intensely,” says Dan-ielle Fuchs, intern. “The Han-schu’s seem to know every tree on their property and to work nonstop between prun-ing, planting, harvesting, build-ing, educating, and advocating. What struck me visually is how similar their stands look after different amounts of thinning. They have a beautiful forest.” Congolese fellow Elikia Amani adds, “Learning about how to protect riparian areas is important to me be-cause I haven’t seen this prac-tice in the Congo. I learned that it is important to create shade along the creek to block the light so the creek remains cool for the fish.” Although they are very busy (Richard is currently building a barn by hand), the Hanschu’s always have time to give guests a tour, and they have invited the fellows back to visit in the spring when the wildflowers blossom.

Updates from WFI Alumni!

WFI was relieved to learn that alumnus Sandra Silva and IEI alum-nus Rosa Flores both reported they and their family in Chile were unhurt during the massive 8.8 earthquake. WFI alumnus Mario Angels—who now resides in Port-land—also told us that his family in Chile survived the quake. Rosa Flores, now a teacher in Santiago, reports that “...the dev-astation is enormous both in old construction and coastal areas. Santiago is almost completely op-erating now, but this is not the reality for the rest of the country southward, where people do not have access to basic needs and that lead to desperation and van-dalism.” She is however very hopeful that the country has the resources and ability to help and reorganize, although there are indeed many challenges ahead.

schu’s formed Doneen, Inc. (www.doneen.com) with their three children in order to manage the forest for the benefit of their family and future generations. The cou-ple continues to manage the property for sustainable tim-ber harvests, wildlife habitat, riparian health and aesthetics. In 1998, the Hanschu’s were named Washington County Tree Farmers of the year, and in 2000 they were voted Re-gional Tree Farmers of the Western region of the United States. The Hanschu’s showed the WFI Fellows and staff the many ways in which they man-age their forests. The area near the house is pruned for high-quality lumber with few knots and also cleared for fire safety. Throughout the prop-erty, stands are in different phases of the harvest regime. Some stands are thinned dif-ferent amounts, some sec-tions were replanted, and some stands were recently clearcut. Richard explained that he kept large, old trees as seed trees more out of re-spect for the trees than for his management prescription.

Top: Richard Hanschu demonstrates his pruning ladder. Left: Chandalin Bennett, Rick Zenn, Ke Dong, and Kirk Sol-berg listen as Anne Hanschu explains her forest management strategies. Right: Richard Hanschu shows Congolese fellow Elikia Amani how to core a tree.

Former WFI intern Kirk Solberg poses with famous wax statue in Shanghai, China where he now studies.

2005 IEI crew at the Wind River Canopy Crane. Chilean IEI alumnus Rosa Flores second from right.

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Farewells Follow for Australian Fellow and Intern

In January we said good-bye to Australian fellow Roslyn Henricks and in-tern Kirk Solberg. During her year-long stay at WFI, Roslyn researched the appeal of monoculture tree farms to the public. “What an amazing experi-ence my 2009 fellowship was! Never again will I get a chance to learn from so

much both locally and inter-nationally about the many issues facing those working with the world’s for-ests. Aside from learning much about my topic of choice, it was generally fas-cinating to spend time with many different natural re-source management agen-cies all around the Pacific Northwest. I loved being out in the forest and watch-ing the forest respond to the changing seasons. I made many great friends and I will miss being part of such a great workplace. As my husband is from the USA, for the forseeable fu-ture I will be living in the Randle area of Washing-ton. I plan on returning to Australia to spend time with family and present my pro-ject to my sponsors for the month of March. After this time I will be looking for employment in the Randle region, cycling, painting, and enjoying this beautiful part

WFC Board Member Give Fellows Inspiring Talk

Recent Events of the world!” We miss Roz’s infectious energy and wish her good luck for the future. At the same time as Roz was leaving us at the end of Janu-ary, we also had to say good-bye to one of our interns, Kirk Solberg. Kirk finished his internship at WFI and left for China on a fellowship he re-ceived to study Chinese. We thank him for his dedicated work writing newsletters, making videos, and helping the Fellows with their projects. We wish him the best of luck in China.

Longtime WFC board member Barbara Walker came to the WFI in early February to talk with the Fellows about her lifetime project: the 40 Mile Loop trail, now approximately 140 miles of walking and biking trails that connect parks and other natural areas throughout the Port-land Metro area. Barbara explained how the idea for the trail was conceived by landscape architect John Charles Olmsted in 1903 but was for-gotten for 75 years. Barbara rallied her friends and neighbors

to fight for this trail system when developers threatened to convert the natural area behind her home into a giant apartment complex. “You have to find something to fight for, to put a positive spin on

it,” Barbara said. “You can’t just fight against something.” She held teas and sold buttons until she had enough support to buy the first piece of prop-erty along the trail. Eventually Barbara and other supporters

created the 40 Mile Loop Land Trust in 1981 to help acquire lands for the trail. Barbara impressed the Fellows with her continued passion and energy for her project. The curious Fel-lows had many questions for her as she told her life’s story. After the talk, Barbara stayed for lunch to answer more questions and to hear about what the Fellows are working on.

From left: Ke Dong, Sara Wu, Chandalin Bennett, Aline Moreira, Barbara Walker, Danielle Fuchs, Sue Baker, and Elikia Amani at the World Forest Institute.

Fellows Aline, Sue, and Elikia and pro-gram manager Chandalin visit the Port-land Classical Chinese Gardens.

Sydney Mead (left) gives a “Green Build-ing” tour of the Ecotrust building to Aline Moreira, Danielle Fuchs, Elikia Amani, Sue Baker, Ke Dong, and Paul Oester.

Fellows Sue, Elikia, Aline, and intern Dan-ielle tour the Pittock Mansion.

Australian fellow Roslyn Henricks moved to Washington after com-pleting her fellowship at WFI.

Kirk Solberg ended his internship to pursue a study abroad opportunity in China.

The Fellows have started going on monthly Cultural Portland! field trips. They visit historically and culturally significant places throughout the greater Portland area in addition to their forestry-related suite of trips. Below are some pictures from these events!

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Tribal Foresters Relate Values of Indian Nation

1988. Mr. Wilson also pre-sented an overview of the Natural Resources Division of Grand Ronde and their re-source management goals. The next day the Fellows vis-ited the Grand Ronde reser-vation to see first-hand how tribal forests are managed. Mike Wilson greeted the Fel-lows and conducted the tour along with several other staff members. The Fellows were very curious about the cul-tural aspects of the reserva-tion as well as the natural resources, so the tour guides took them to several impor-tant buildings. The tour guides explained how the traditional longhouse, in its final stages of construction, was framed with logs that were specially se-

lected from around the reser-vation. Since the trees were so old, the elders of the tribe held ceremonies around each tree to consecrate them for the building. The longhouse will be used for weddings, funerals, and other important ceremonies when it’s com-plete. Next, the Fellows got to see the new education buildings. They were delighted to play with the preschoolers before lunch. Then it was back to the outdoors for the fellows to see the fish weir in action. Although no fish swam up the river that day, the Fellows later caught a glimpse of wild-life as a herd of female elk crossed a ridge in front of the vehicles. The foresters had a convenient demonstration of how they manage for elk meadows. Finally, the group visited a regeneration harvest and discussed timber harvest and management. At the end of the day the Fel-lows were reluctant to leave, and there was much discus-sion about how the foresters integrate the desires of the tribe into their management practices. The Fellows re-ceived thoughtful gift bags from Sprit Mountain Casino as they left, as well as insight into how to build a sustain-able community through com-munication and hard work.

In February, Senior Fellow Rick Zenn and Brazilian Fellow Aline Moreira attended a training work-shop in Boise, Idaho for the edu-cational curriculum Global Connec-tions: Forests of the World. The trip was sponsored by Idaho Forest Products Commission.

Recent Events Don Motanic from the In-tertribal Timber Council (ITC) and Mike Wilson, the Natural Resources Division Manager for the Confeder-ated Tribes of Grand Ronde, visited the World Forest Institute in early Feb-ruary to talk about natural resource management on tribal lands. Mr. Motanic gave a brief history of U.S.-tribal relations since the settlement of the West. This greatly interested the international Fellows, who were not taught this history in school. Mr. Motanic also described the purpose of the ITC, which is to manage Indian forestlands, to pro-mote communication, and help train Indian foresters. Mr. Wilson then gave the Fellows an introduction to the tumultuous history of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. The Grand Ronde Reservation was es-tablished in the mid-1800s, but was completely termi-nated by 1954. In 1983 a small portion of the original reservation was restored to the Grand Ronde tribes, and their current acreage (>10,000 ac) was gained in

Aline gives a presentation in the College of Forestry at OSU.

Left: The WFI Fellows and staff are shown how the fish weir operates. Right: Congolese Fellow Elikia Amani reaches up to touch the roof of the longhouse.

From left: Elikia with program manager Chandalin, OSU professor Badege Bishaw, and Chinese Fellow Ke Dong at OSU.

Brazilian Fellow Aline teaches high school students about global forests.

The WFI fellows and staff pose with their tour guides from the Natural Re-sources Division of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.

In January and February, Fellows traveled to Corvallis to give pres-entations at Oregon State Univer-sity.

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