By Jennifer Whitelaw

George Fleming and his family own 285 acres of forest and pasture land in Curry County, along Oregon’s south coast. Four different creeks run through their property, named Heartland Forest, and George is proud that one of them contains Coho salmon.

The Flemings and others in Curry County actively involved with the local conservation easement program have been working to restore the creeks and watersheds. Much of the area used to be agricultural, and for people farming the land, streams and creeks were in the way.

Now, concerned residents like the Flemings are working to put the stream system back into place and to make sure the waters are hospitable to fish, as well as the river otters, kingfishers and others that also use the streams.  

“In the 1980s, a lot of the streams were cleared by a restoration group,” said George. “They thought they were helping.”

Clearing old logs from the streams did just the opposite, though, so now participants in the conservation easement program are working to populate the streams with trees again. George says that having a healthy population of trees along the stream banks also helps by shading the water and preventing it from becoming too warm for the fish.

The idea of restoration and preservation has “really taken hold in this area,” said George. “There’s a new generation of thinking coming into ranching.”

George describes his town of Langlois as a small collection of ranchers and foresters. The Flemings don’t do a lot of thinning in their forest, in fact they have less than a one percent annual cut, but when they do, they sell the wood to neighbors who find out about the harvest through word of mouth.

“We have a very long term strategy,” said George, “and we manage the forest very lightly. We go for old growth.”

George says he is considering carbon banking as a revenue source and a way to protect Heartland Forest for generations to come.

“The kids think it’s a great idea,” said George.

George, his wife and four children all participate in the management and preservation of Heartland Forest. His son lives in a house on the property, and one of his daughters wants to build a “cabin in the woods.”

George says that whenever he gets a free half hour, he goes walking in the woods. Often on Sundays, forest strolls are a family affair. “I call it going to church on Sunday,” said George.

The Flemings felt that certifying their forest was the right thing to do many years ago, but the certification program at the time didn’t meet their needs, and after feeling like they weren’t getting the value they hoped for, they let their certification lapse.

Soon thereafter, Jerry Becker, a certified Northwest Certified Forestry (NCF) auditor and preferred provider and a man George refers to as their mentor, introduced them to Ian Hanna of Northwest Natural Resource Group.

“Ian told us about their approach to certification, and we really liked how involved they were with their members,” he said.
Ultimately, the Flemings recertified their forest through NNRG’s Northwest Certified Forestry program.

George describes their forest management program as “low tech logging.” They use a cable and a truck to remove the trees and place each tree on an old car hood so that they don’t do too much damage to the forest floor. When they thin the forest, they use a thinning rate of about one tree per acre. They cut the wood themselves and have a drying shed on their property.

Though the Flemings’ focus is on creating an old growth forest, their thinning efforts did not escape the attention of a builder in Phoenix, Arizona. Hard pressed to find sustainable lumber, or even straight lumber, in Phoenix, the builder is looking to the Flemings to help supply him with wood to restore rundown houses in Phoenix. The houses, which are often historic, require special wood, and the builder wants the wood to be sustainable.

Heartland forest features alder, cedar, redwood and spruce. A 1986 fire decimated much of the grand fir and Douglas fir at Heartland Forest, but looking on the bright side, George says that the roads the fire department had to create upon the ridge to fight the fire now serve as scenic trails and fire breaks.

Not all of the Fleming’s land is forest. George’s wife raises sheep on their 15 acres of pasture land for her fiber art business. In addition to the fiber art business and managing a forest, the Flemings also own a Montessori school nearby, George does some work as a builder and the couple runs Heartland Forest Bed and Breakfast on their property.

“We like to walk our guests around and force them to listen to us,” joked George.

But the guest won’t be the only ones getting an education.

“I try to look at the forest from the forest’s eyes,” said George. “You develop a more intimate relationship with the forest when you understand the complexity of it.”

For other foresters with an eye toward sustainability, George says that being patient is at the heart of his management plan.

“Getting old while being patient isn’t easy, but it’s a wonderful thing to do,” he said. “You achieve ecological advantages for everyone and you learn a tremendous amount.”

Finally, George recommends to people who own a forest property they can manage that they get the whole family involved.

“There’s always something someone can do regardless of skill and/or interest level, and it’s a wonderful facilitator for family time. Better than an eight hour car ride.”