Skyline Forest project still on track

Converting 33,000 acres of private forestland into a public forest is easier said than done, but the concept is still moving forward.

"This is a complicated enough project that it's really hard for anyone to size up," said Brad Chalfant, executive director of the Deschutes Land Trust. "The landowner has been trying to figure out a way for people to wrap their minds around this. It's hard to do."

The owner is Cascade Timberlands, a holding company set up to receive property of the defunct Crown Pacific Partners. Crown Pacific once held 800,000 acres of timberland in the Pacific Northwest but went bankrupt in 2003. Fidelity National Timber, a subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial, holds a controlling interest in Cascade Timberlands.

Deschutes Land Trust has been in the unusual, and sometimes awkward, position of trying to bring multiple parties together to find a way to protect as much of the forest as possible. The current thinking is to move toward creation of a "community forest" that would be managed locally. The concept is not without precedent, but the size of the proposed forest is.

Fidelity has expressed a willingness to donate the vast majority of the land in exchange for a green light to develop a relatively small percentage of it.

Chalfant noted that the huge property, formerly known as the Bull Springs Tree Farm, has a history of public use that fosters certain continuing expectations. As a result, the public as a whole has mixed emotions about any changes.

"Part of what we're doing now is building an organizational structure capable of acquiring and managing these big pieces of ground," Chalfant said. "Fidelity is close to a decision on how to vett this with the public."