Strategic Planning

KSON’s Strategic Action Plan (SAP) 2020

Oak woodland fall. Photo credit: Jaime Stephens

KSON_2020_Klamath_Siskiyou_Oak_Network_Strategic_Action_Plan_Cover

KSON’s Strategic Action Plan (SAP), completed in 2020, serves as a road map for achieving continued and accelerated oak woodland conservation across the Bioregion for the benefit of all native species associated with deciduous oak (e.g., Oregon White Oak and California Black Oak) ecosystems within the KSON Geography. The companion summary introduces the KSON SAP and describes and summarizes the major components of the plan, identifying how the plan can be used to implement oak woodland conservation strategies in an adaptive management framework.

The SAP outlines specific conservation foci to guide conservation action over the short (6-year), medium (12-year), and long (30-year) term. The plan focuses on four oak targets – Oak Savanna, Oak Chaparral, Oak Woodland, and Oak Conifer.

The SAP identifies and ranks threats to oak ecosystem targets and numerous strategies to address those threats. Results chains in the plan provide a visualization for how those strategies work to reduce threats and change the status of the targets to achieve both near and long-term goals.

KSON Strategic Conservation Action Plan
Companion Summary

Adaptive Management

Key ecological attributes (KEAs) are used to describe the current and desired conditions of each of the four targets. Each KEA has indicators used to measure target conditions. Using the KEAs and the indicators, we assessed the current conditions and described the desired future condition for each target. Restoration efforts implemented over the next 6 to 30 years will result in landscape-level outcomes for our oak targets.

close up of a tuft of grass
Lemmon s needlegrass resprouts readily post- fire. Credit: Teresa Fernandez
four people working together in a forest meadow with equipment for monitoring the ground area
Understory Initiative staff monitoring grassland plant communities

Monitoring

The results of our assessment can be applied in an adaptive management framework. Using geospatial and site monitoring of KEA indicators, we will assess progress toward the desired future conditions of each oak ecosystem target in our region.

Example Application:
Using the SAP to identify priority areas

Using the top-ranked strategies and threats identified in the plan, as well as the maps provided in the SAP, KSON partners applied the following process to identify priority geography for a Conservation Implementation Strategy: Increase restoration of target habitats.

  • 1 Top threats that are best addressed by restoration: Fire Exclusion and Conifer Encroachment are two of the three highest threats
  • 2 Top targets that are most threatened by Fire Exclusion and Conifer Encroachment: Oak Woodland and Oak Conifer
  • 3 Identify geographies with high amounts of Oak Woodland and Oak Conifer. Geographies should also be informed by climate resilience and departure data.
  • 4 Within those geographies, look for the best opportunities for restoration. Narrow down specific areas by examining land ownership and zoning within high-priority geographies.
  • 5 KSON partners work together to identify other opportunities and planned projects within these regions.

Following our successful model for oak restoration implementation, KSON partners contribute diverse expertise to all phases of restoration planning, implementation, and monitoring.