Our proposed vision statement for the Corvallis Forest:
"The Corvallis Forest within the Rock Creek Watershed is a model municipal drinking water catchment, esteemed by Corvallis residents as a protected, late-successional forested landscape that provides safe, reliable quantities of drinking water with greatly reduced treatment costs, resilience to climate change impacts, diverse terrestrial and aquatic habitats for native species, and abundant carbon storage."
Our proposed guiding principles:
• The Corvallis Forest is managed for source water protection to preserve and enhance the ecosystem functions of the forest that naturally supply high quality municipal drinking water for the city of Corvallis;
• The Corvallis Forest is managed to preserve and enhance the ecosystem functions of the forest that regulate stream flows supplying reliable quantities of drinking water throughout the year;
• The Corvallis Forest is managed on behalf of the residents of Corvallis as a model of late seral forest preservation, providing a local, active and ethical response to the global biodiversity crisis and the climate change crisis;
• The Corvallis Forest is managed to preserve the ecosystem functions of the forest that provide stream water quality, reliable quantities, and temperatures in support of aquatic species and habitat;
• Corvallis Forest is managed to maintain the existing variety of different ages and types of forest that provide diversity of native terrestrial and aquatic habitats;
• The Corvallis Forest is managed as a “good neighbor” to residents living near and around the watershed;
• The Corvallis Forest is managed as an integral part of the larger Rock Creek Watershed, all of which embodies the valuable ecosystem functions that the inhabitants of the Corvallis region depend on.