BEND, Ore. - Some Central Oregon hikes are having a longer-term effect on the people who made them this summer. On Wednesday in Bend, outdoor fans will meet to open a few beers crafted using ingredients discovered right along the trail in Oregon's high desert.

Three local breweries signed up to take the challenge, joining a group of about 70 now participating in Beers Made By Walking in three western states.

Eric Steen, founder and director of Beers Made By Walking, says brewers who go on outings into Oregon's high desert are always surprised at the variety of possibilities for new recipes.

"We'll go on a hike and identify 20 to 30 different plants that are edible," says Steen. "Some of them may not be of interest, they perhaps don't have a lot of flavor, or the flavor doesn't sound too great with beer. But it's always interesting to see how many there are."

While not all the plants they find are edible, Steen says the groups take great care to identify all the plants they come across, edible or not - which can make for a slower hike than normal.

Steen adds the proceeds from the tapping events go to local conservation groups - in this case, the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA), which led the hikes.

Gena Goodman-Campbell, Central Oregon wilderness coordinator with ONDA, says the point of the hikes isn't really to forage for edible plants, but to appreciate the great diversity of desert life and use the landscape as inspiration.

"Inspiration is truly a renewable resource," she says. "You can go back to these places and see something different every time, so the inspiration the brewers drew from the areas is more at the core of the beers - and I'm really excited to taste them."

Goodman-Campbell adds the hikes also introduce a new group of people to areas ONDA is working to protect.

Steen recommends brewers purchase their ingredients commercially whenever possible instead of foraging for them. He adds the goal isn't to find the next big sales hit for a brewery, but to have fun, try something new, and explore Oregon's incredible outdoors.

"These are experimental beers, you know, and sometimes the ingredients are untested," Steen says. "But I think people will be surprised at how well some of them work as beers."

Ingredients in the beers inspired by the ONDA hikes include chokecherries, juniper tips and berries, wild sage, pine, meadowsweet and Indian rice grass.

The tapping event is Wed., Oct. 15, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., at the Broken Top Bottle Shop, 1740 N.W. Pence Lane, Bend.


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Arizona conservation groups and sportsmen alike say they're pleased the Bureau of Land Management will now recognize conservation as an integral part of public lands management.

The agency's new rule puts protecting the environment on par with other land-use priorities.

Scott Garlid, executive director of the Arizona Wildlife Federation, said historically the BLM has done what he termed a "pretty good job," not only managing about 12 million acres of public lands in Arizona, but also protecting natural resources.

"They've got a tough job," Garlid acknowledged. "I think this rule helps make their job a little bit easier because it gives them some tools to balance those different demands on the 12 million acres that they manage."

Garlid predicted the rule will raise what he terms "harder-to-quantify conservation values" to the same level of importance as more extractive land uses like oil and gas exploration and mining. He thinks most Arizonans will recognize the new rule as a positive. A solid majority of Arizona voters across party lines say they are conservationists and use public lands for recreation.

To Garlid, the rule makes it clear the BLM is recognizing certain parts of federal lands, in Arizona and around the West, have been degraded. He contended restoration leases will be a good tool, allowing the BLM to lease acres to groups specifically to improve the conditions on a given landscape. He noted opponents of the new rule might see the leases as a way to "lock up" land but he argued it is not true.

"One example could be a nonprofit, like the Arizona Wildlife Federation," Garlid pointed out. "We could get a conservation lease from the Bureau of Land Management to do riparian restoration work, or work to remove invasive species along a creek bank."

According to the BLM, while a restoration or mitigation lease is in place, casual uses of the leased lands like recreation, hunting, fishing and research activities would generally continue.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


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A new study in the journal Nature Communications by Montana researchers said suppressing small wildfires is leading to larger, more intense and damaging blazes.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, about 98% of wildfires are fully suppressed before they grow to 100 acres; most of them within 72 hours. In Montana, the latest data show crews kept 95% of wildfires in Montana to no more than 10 acres in 2022.

Mark Kreider, a doctoral candidate in forest and conservation science at the University of Montana and co-author of the report, said the strategy leads to what is known as fire "suppression bias."

"Removing more of one type of fire than the other, what we're left with is bias towards the higher intensity fires, these more extreme fires," Kreider explained.

Montana state policy calls for crews to extinguish fires as quickly as possible, even small ones. Kreider pointed out researchers recommend letting low-intensity fires burn where possible to reduce the risk and damage potential for larger, hotter-burning and more catastrophic blazes.

Kreider acknowledged as the population grows along the urban-wildland interface, letting fires burn is not always possible, but argued it might be the best strategy for heading off catastrophic fires later.

"Especially in the western U.S. where people live close to forests, fire suppression is very important and we still must do it," Kreider noted. "But this research helps to show when possible in places where it's safe to do so, we really may benefit from allowing more low and moderate intensity fire to burn."

The National Interagency Fire Center said the number of acres scorched by wildfire has doubled since the 1980s, and the cost to battle the fires has risen to nearly $3 billion a year.


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