In the 1980s, public concern over the fate of the northern spotted owl and the loss and fragmentation of the old-growth forests on which it depends led to unprecedented interest in natural resource management in the Pacific Northwest. Fueled by intense political activism, local and regional debates gained national prominence as lawsuits initiated by environmental groups led to a series of injunctions from federal district courts that brought timber sales to a halt on lands managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. In April 1993, in response to this "timber crisis," President Clinton commissioned the Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team (FEMAT) to formulate and assess the consequences of an array of options for managing federal forest lands within the range of the northern spotted owl. This assessment was the first attempt to develop a comprehensive plan for ecosystem management at a broad geographic scale. The Record of Decision, and the standards and guidelines associated with the resulting management plan, The Northwest Forest Plan, were published in April 1994. Green-tree or structural retention is now a standard component of harvest prescriptions on federal "matrix" lands within the range of the northern spotted owl.

As changes in federal forest management policy evolved under the paradigm of "ecosystem management," it became apparent that implementation of new approaches to management was hampered by a paucity of research, and in particular, research targeted to and integrated with management. To address these needs, an Ecosystem Management Partnership (subsequently named New Perspectives Partners) was formed, bringing together scientists from the University of Washington, Oregon State University, the UDSA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, and the Aerial Forest Management Foundation, and resource managers from the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region.

Working with members of Congress in 1992, the partners emphasized the need for experiments on alternative approaches to forest harvest and suggested how such studies might be implemented on federal and state lands in the Pacific Northwest. At the same time, the Douglas Project Coalition (a local group of businessmen and citizens from Douglas County, Oregon) sought funds for a large-scale study and demonstration of the biological, social, and economic consequences of diverse management strategies. In 1992 Congress allocated funds to support the establishment of silvicultural experiments in Washington and Oregon using "new forestry" and "landscape management techniques." The Forest Service was directed to conduct this work in consultation with the New Perspectives Partners and Douglas County Coalition. After considerable debate on research objectives, management needs, and experiments, a final experimental design was adopted - one that tested a broad range of retention levels (15 to 100%) and two distinct spatial patterns of retention (dispersed vs. aggregated). From a larger group of potential study locations in western Oregon and Washington, eight blocks were identified, each containing relatively homogenous stands large enough to support six, 13-ha experimental units.

For a detailed treatment of the evolution and history of the DEMO study see:

Franklin, J.F., L.A. Norris, D.R. Berg, and G.R. Smith, 1999. The history of DEMO: An experiment in regeneration harvest of northwestern forest ecosystems. Northwest Science 73 (Special Issue): 3-11.