ALBANY, CA, November 30, 2005- The USDA Forest Service and University of California, Berkeley announced the designation of the Sagehen Experimental Forest under the administration of the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW) and the Tahoe National Forest. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, in signing the approval of the experimental forest designation Monday, recognized the important role that experimental forests have played in improving management of forest resources throughout their history.

Sagehen is located approximately 10 miles north of Truckee, California, and includes the Sagehen Creek Field Station that has been operated by the University of California, Berkeley under special use permit from the Tahoe National Forest since 1951. The designation of the Sagehen Experimental Forest creates California’s 11th experimental forest, and is the first to be created since 1962.

Research in the 9,000-acre Sagehen Experimental Forest will be managed collaboratively by the Pacific Southwest Research Station, the Tahoe National Forest and University of California, Berkeley. Research will answer important questions about the management of National Forests in the Sierra Nevada. The Tahoe National Forest and UC Berkeley have been working cooperatively for many years and have recently initiated a fireshed analysis for the Sagehen area with the intent of designing a strategic fuel reduction plan to lessen the intensity of a wildfire.

Sagehen Creek Field Station has provided facilities for research and education in biology, fisheries, forestry, hydrology, entomology and wildlife since its beginning. It also serves as the hub for the network of research opportunities that include Sagehen Creek Field Station, Sagehen Basin Experimental Forest, the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, Onion Creek Experimental Forest, and cooperating private land ownerhsips in the Upper North Fork American River drainage.

Sagehen Field Station’s fifty years of research and monitoring draws researchers from universities across the country, as well as government agencies, non-profit institutions, K-12 schools and the general public. PSW brings 75 years of research and long-term data, and one of the goals of this collaboration is to make each institutions’ data more accessible to all who are interested.

PSW administers a network of experimental forests in California, where scientists conduct long-term research that can answer critical questions related to the management of national forests. The designation of the Sagehen Experimental Forest represents an important increase in the Forest Service’s ability to provide objective science for forest management, and according to PSW Station Director Jim Sedell, “This designation will increase the opportunities of scientists throughout the west to share the results of research conducted over decades in the Sierra Nevada.” For more information about experimental forests in California, please visit ttp://www.fs.fed.us/psw/ef.