Hey folks, Randy Noberg here.

Welcome to Loop Holds, Hanthac of Radio.

A folks for Randy Noberg here with another episode of Loop Holds, Hanthac Radio.

Today I have some cool guests who are going to help me learn more about a very big problem we have in the West as it relates to wildlife habitat, as it relates to surface water, all kinds of things.

And it's an issue about Juniper encroachment.

And any of us who read about habitat issues are fully aware of the consequences of Juniper encroachment.

And it's happening pretty much anywhere in the West, anywhere Juniper exists.

And in my research for this, I've been trying to find what's a good project, what's a good area that we can use as an example that is local or regional.

And know that that can be extrapolated to any places where the Juniper issues are what they are.

And the reason that I'm looking for a specific project, this one is in Central Oregon, is that the issues are very much the same for Oregon as they are for New Mexico or Colorado or Utah or Arizona and Nevada, you know, Idaho, you name it.

Other than the, there's a slight distribution and differences of where the Juniper grows and what size.

And we're going to get into some topics here about utilizing Juniper as an actual wood product.

And in Oregon, in a few other places, there is the ability to utilize this as a wood product.

Now, there are some places and it can be a function of climate, soil types, density of the stands where probably not going to have utilization.

But the conservation issues are still the same.

Conservation issues being these big monocultures of Juniper stands, how that impacts surface water, subsurface water springs, which affects vegetation,

which affects, you know, the things we love, wild places, wild things, has a whole bunch of other consequences about endangered species.

You name it, we're probably going to touch on this.

And with me is Tim DeBoot.

Tim is a retired professor from Oregon State University. His specialty is Rangie College, as it relates to opinion or not opinion Junipers.

And then Dylan Cruz, he's the director of government affairs and program strategy at Sustainable Northwest, which is a group that is working on public-private nonprofit partnerships

to solve these kind of landscape issues and also figure out a way to create markets for products such as Juniper.

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