Page 73 - Southern Oregon Magazine Summer 2021

and bad logging. Unfortunately, much of the good logging we need to
do in order to restore balance and health to the ecosystem is not neces-
sarily commercially profitable, while much of the bad logging is. That
dichotomy, as well as fire suppression, are the biggest factors involved
in what got us in our current situation.

We also need to aggressively push for off-season prescribed burns!
Appropriate thinning and targeted prescribed burns are the fastest way
to return our ecosystem to proper health. The Ashland Forest Resiliency
Stewardship Project has done a phenomenal job spearheading this pro-
ject, and now the Ashland watershed is starting to look like what we
should all be pushing for. Let’s all do what we can to get our forests
back to healthy so that they’re still there for us, our children, and our
grandchildren to enjoy.

In the meantime, let’s at least not burn down the Rogue Valley because
we wanted to sit by a fire and enjoy the smell!

Bryant Helgeland is the owner/operator of Mountain Provisions, on the
Plaza in Ashland. Active in several outdoor sports (Telemark skiing, XC
Skiing, Road and Mountain biking, Hiking, Backpacking, Kayaking), he
has been a seminar speaker on many of those activities. He attended a
NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) semester trip to Chile shortly
after college. During high school he was a counselor at YMCA outdoor
camps. Contact him at bryant@ashlandmountainprovisions.com or the
store’s Facebook page.

summer 2021 | www.southernoregonmagazine.com 71