Over the last 20 years, changing public values and increased ecological understanding have led to a paradigm shift in forestry from timber management to sustainable ecosystem management on U.S. federal lands. Forest managers are now seeking alternative management approaches that simultaneously meet socio-cultural, ecological and economic goals. Consequently, many field experiments have become increasingly interdisciplinary and larger in scale or scope. Individually and collectively, these studies in western Washington and Oregon represent major investments by research and land management organizations to enhance the science and understanding for sustainable forest management under increasing public scrutiny and demands for safeguarding healthy environments, conserving biological diversity and providing some level of economic prosperity. They also help to facilitate the transfer of scientific results into practical applications and to realize a more effective interface between science and policy. Questions addressed in this paper include (i) what do we mean by large-scale experiments, (ii) who is investing in these kinds of experiments and why, (iii) where is this information being put to use, and (iv) what does the future hold for these studies?
