Fall 2025 17 PHOTO BY TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND/NICK GRIER AN EMERALD CLASSROOM Oregon State gains a new research forest outside Portland. The classroom just got 3,110 acres bigger for Oregon State forestry students. Gifted to the university in May, the Tualatin Mountain Forest is the 10th research forest managed by the College of Forestry and the first in the Portland area. Located west of the city’s Forest Park, and made up primarily of Douglas fir stands less than 40 years old, it offers a rare opportunity to study how to restore biodiversity, resilience and structure in a landscape previously managed for industrial timber. The forest also creates new possibilities for nature-based education, particularly for urban and underserved youth. “The Tualatin Mountain Forest will offer incredible opportunities for educational programming, public access and the co-identification of research and management priorities with tribes, including the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, on whose ancestral lands the forest is located,” said Tom DeLuca, Cheryl Ramberg Ford and Allyn C. Ford Dean of the College of Forestry. The Trust for Public Land acquired the private forestland worth $27.3 million with funding from the U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program, Metro Regional Government and private gifts, and then transferred ownership to OSU.The forest will be financially self-sustaining with all activities funded through revenue generated by sustainable timber harvests, grants and philanthropy. — Cora Lasson
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