COGIS Meeting - Community Mapping

COGIS Meeting - Community Mapping

11 December, 2013

2.30 - 5pm

Barnes Room, Deschutes Services Building

1300 NW Wall St, Bend, OR 97701 

Two presenters will talk on mapping / GIS projects where their organization has involved the public to build consensus.

Craig Miller will introduce Oregon Natural Desert Association's (ONDA) work, then talk about the Oregon Desert Trail from concept to completion. GIS was integral to the project, from drafting a route, to creating inventory maps, to field testing and finalizing the trail route, to producing the final maps now available on ONDA's web site.

Chris Zanger  from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) will present on a project he is working on that identifies the amount of forested systems that are departed across the state.  This looks at current forest structure data and compares it to modeled historical (pre-European settlement) and quantifies the departure between those structural conditions.  The results of this type of analysis help to articulate the case for where and how much forest restoration need there is across the state.  There is a sweet spot in Oregon’s dry forest systems where an increase in thinning and burning is achieving both an ecological and economic benefit.  The Nature Conservancy is looking to encourage action in these areas.  By making the case with a quantified amount of restoration need we can help encourage larger and more ecologically effective projects by the federal land managers.