Office to open in Ashland in July

By BILL KETTLER

The World Wildlife Fund will open an office in Ashland this summer to expand national awareness of the biological treasure trove in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

The new office is part of the international conservation group's "Living Planet Campaign" to preserve biological diversity around the globe. Dominick DellaSala, a forest ecologist for the WWF, plans to open the office sometime in July.

DellaSala said the WWF will spend three to five years working with local people to develop a conservation plan that can preserve the region's temperate forests and allow people to earn a living from natural resources without destroying them.

"We want to sustain the quality of life," he said, "and the natural resource base that elevated (the region) to importance."

The WWF has identified 200 especially sensitive areas around the world that harbor rich botanical reserves. He said Southern Oregon and Northern California are the site of one of the world's 10 richest temperate forests, in terms of plant and animal diversity.

The Klamath-Siskiyou region is one of just five areas in North America on the WWF's global list. The others are the Florida Everglades; the Chihuahuan Desert in Texas and New Mexico; Alaska's Bering Sea; and southeastern rivers and streams in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.

The WWF wants to raise $10 million to develop conservation plans for the five eco-regions.

DellaSala said the regional conservation plans reflect a new, broader approach for environmental planning. Previously activists often ran from crisis to crisis, "just putting out brushfires."

Southern Oregon conservationists said the WWF's presence in the region would boost their own efforts and give the region the national and international attention it deserves.

"We're always short-handed in this business," said Kelpie Wilson, director of the Siskiyou Regional Education Project in Cave Junction. "Getting an accomplished professional like Dominick DellaSala in our region, with his background in ecology, is a real boon."

Wilson said the international conservation group's commitment to the region "validates what we always knew to be true. We've been trying to shout at the top of our lungs to anyone who would listen that this is a special place."

DellaSala has worked previously in the region and lived in Keno, in Klamath County, while developing a fire ecology plan for local eagle refuges.