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“Ecological selleck chemicals restoration has become a dominant paradigm for the management of many public forests across the United States (USDA Forest Service, 2012a and USDA Forest Service, 2012b). Ecological restoration is “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed” (SER, 2004). Within western states, this present focus on restoration is largely in response to the widespread degradation

of terrestrial and aquatic habitats and uncharacteristic fire, insect, and disease outbreaks resulting from a century or more of wildfire suppression, intensive harvesting, grazing, and mining (Brown et al., 2004, Franklin et al., 2008, Hessburg and Agee, 2003, Hessburg et al., 2005, North et al., 2009, Peterson et al., 2005 and Schoennagel et al., 2004). Since 2010 $20 to $40 million has been appropriated annually for the ecological restoration of federal forests through the Collaborative Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP; H.R. 5263, fs.fed.us/restoration/CFLRP). 5-FU mouse In addition to CFLRP, the USDA Forest Service has undertaken a number of initiatives in recent years to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration including but not limited to implementing a new forest planning rule (USDA Forest Service, 2012a), the Watershed Condition Framework (USDA Forest Service,

2011a), and a bark beetle strategy (USDA Forest Service, 2011b). Similarly, state governments in Oregon, Washington and elsewhere are promoting both the ecological and economic benefits of forest restoration. For example, the Oregon Federal Forest Health

Package (SB 5521 passed by the Oregon Legislature in 2013) is providing nearly $2.9 million for technical assistance and scientific support needed to increase the pace and scale of collaboratively developed management efforts and to pilot a new business model that contributes funding directly to help increase the pace and scale of implementing restoration work on national forests. Tideglusib Despite highly publicized calls to increase the pace and scale of forest restoration (Rasmussen et al., 2012 and USDA Forest Service, 2012b) we lack a comprehensive understanding of forest restoration needs. In many, but not all, of the interior Pacific Northwest forest ecosystems previous studies have documented patterns of departure from historical conditions (e.g., Everett et al., 2000, Hagmann et al., 2013, Haugo et al., 2010, Hessburg et al., 2005, Hessburg et al., 2000b, Heyerdahl et al., 2014, Perry et al., 2011 and Wright and Agee, 2004). However these studies are not able to provide a systematic evaluation of where, how much, and what types of treatments are needed to restore forest structure at regional scales (100,000s–1,000,000s of ha). Until recently most restoration planning and implementation has occurred at scales of watersheds or smaller (⩽5000 ha).