Siting Research

Many Northern California residents and visiting outdoor enthusiasts may not realize that within 600 kilometers of the SF Bay Area we have one of the most magnificent and studied temperate forest landscapes on Earth. "The Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion is considered a global center of biodiversity (Wallace 1982), an IUCN Area of Global Botanical Significance (1 of 7 in North America), and is proposed as a World Heritage Site and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (Vance-Borland et al. 1995). The biodiversity of these rugged coastal mountains of northwestern California and southwestern Oregon has garnered this acclaim because the region harbors one of the four richest temperate coniferous forests in the world (along with the Southeastern Conifer forests of North America, forests of Sichuan, China, and the forests of the Primorye region of the Russian Far East), with complex biogeographic patterns, high endemism, and unusual community assemblages."

Please see more here: http://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/na0516 

Overview of temperate conifer forests: 

 http://www.worldwildlife.org/biomes/temperate-coniferous-forest 

Botanical areas of interest in the Klamath-Siskiyou:

 http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/klamath/specialplaces/?cid=stelprdb5104744

Site area maps were generated from USGS sourced base maps:

 

Sugar Creek Watershed and surrounding area; glaciated valley with temperate mixed conifer and montane forest. (Source: USGS, ESRI)

 

Actual site with road, groundcover and topographc details. (Source: USGS, ESRI)

 

View from the wilderness boundary near the proposed study area South across the post-harvest landscape. (Source: Author)