Jerry Franklin has been fascinated by the forests of the Pacific Northwest all his life.
His childhood dream was to become a forester, exploring the woods and wilds around his hometown of Camas. Now 77, Franklin is one of the leading voices in managing sustainable forest ecosystems. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has acknowledged the importance of his contributions to forest ecology by awarding him membership to its 2014 class.
Franklin will be joining Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize and National Medal of the Arts winners, along with policy leaders in the sciences, arts, civic and academic realms. The honorary society was founded in 1780 and counts among its historic members Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Margaret Meade and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“It’s a pretty awesome recognition,” Franklin said, “though one hates to brag about their own work.” Membership also signifies that Franklin has contributed “a very significant body of science,” he said. “It’s been more than just on a local or regional interest; the science I’ve been involved in has influenced forestry and forestry policy on a global level.”
Franklin, a professor at the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources, graduated from Camas High School in 1954.
“It was a small high school then. My graduating class was about 72 students. We certainly didn’t play for the state championship, I can tell you that,” Franklin said with a laugh.
He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Oregon State University and then became a Corvallis-based researcher for the U.S. Forest Service. Forestry was once viewed through the lens of maintaining forests for wood production.
“We hadn’t done much work on understanding how these ecosystems are put together,” Franklin said.
The forests of the Pacific Northwest can be divided into three fundamental categories: the low-elevation hemlock and Douglas fir west of the Cascade mountains, the pine and birch conifer forests of the drier east side, and the sub-alpine forests in the higher elevations, Franklin said, which could be subdivided into 100 different kinds.
“You have to pay attention to that diversity, but there are very broad forest patterns,” he said. “You can develop principles that work for a lot of different forests.”
Several of the academy’s members nominated Franklin, including fellow collaborator Gene Likens, a leading pioneer in the study of acid rain.
“We’ve worked together a lot on national problems and promoting long-term ecology research,” Franklin said. Ecology is the scientific study of how an environment and its organisms interact with each other.
“l have a goal of trying to help human society understand the richness and complexity of these forests, and in doing that have a better understanding of what they are, and how they should be managed,” Franklin said. “My goal is to make us better stewards to the forests and the organisms that they contain.”
Franklin will attend the American Academy of Arts and Sciences induction ceremony on Oct. 11 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
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