National Association of Conservation Districts

Forestry Notes

February 2010
Volume XIX, Issue 3
| PDF version | Archive of Previous Issues |

1. No Wood to Waste
2. Family Forest Landowners and Managers Conference
3. Washington Cooperative Aims to Market Special Forest Products
4. Invasive Threatens Southeastern Forests
5. Eisenberg Chosen to Lead NACD
6. Forestry Briefs

1. No Wood to Waste
Idaho non-profit works to utilize every inch of product that comes from the forest

In Elk City, Idaho, a non-profit group has helped to stimulate interest in value-added wood products, with much thanks to its partners, including the Clearwater RC&D Council.

Framing Our Community has strived to create more financial stability in the area, pushed the concept of sustainability, and has made it a goal to utilize every inch of product it takes from neighboring forestlands. For the past decade it has made a huge impact, and thanks to an educational video it helped to produce about fire issues, the group recently won the 2009 Firewise Leadership Award.

According to Joyce Dearstyne, Framing Our Community’s executive director, the secret to the work being done in this small Idaho community is to care about the forest and the history the wood industry has in the region. Framing Our Community helps to restore and improve the health of the forests and watersheds that surround the natural resource-dependant community.  New and growing small businesses then utilize the resulting small diameter, dead and dying trees in the manufacture of products for sale to identified niche markets.

“We realized that if we didn’t have a healthy forest, we weren’t going to have a healthy community, and vice versa,” said Dearstyne.

The group came together after a pilot project proved successful. In October of 1999, Framing Our Community presented an outdoor classroom/community gazebo to introduce and stimulate discussion about value-added wood products.

The following year, Framing Our Community held a series of public meetings to learn what more could be done. What became apparent, said Dearstyne, was that conservation was very important to the one-time gold mining community, but also that residents favored being home to small- and mid-sized companies. It was the perfect formula for exploring woody biomass and small-diameter wood possibilities.

Soon, Framing Our Community decided to build the Elk City Small Business Incubator, a facility where such businesses could be housed. The Mill-Idaho Forest Group donated five acres of land, and not long after the group purchased an additional 10 acres. Phase one of the project included an 8,000 square foot facility where value-added businesses can rent space at an affordable rate. In 2010, Dearstyne said construction will begin on phase two – an 18,000 square foot addition. So far businesses that cut custom timber and dimensional lumber, rustic and jack pole fencing, pole peeling and log home construction have occupied the space; more businesses are on the way.

Partners have been the key to the group’s success along the way, said Dearstyne.

In 2004, the group approached the Clearwater RC&D about a defensible space project in nearby Deer Creek.  Framing Our Community’s mission fit well with the RC&D’s objectives, which include protecting against the potential threats of wildfire and exploring biomass opportunities. Said Clearwater RC&D coordinator Ree Brannon, one member recently finished a five-year biomass crop assessment for central Idaho.

The groups later worked together on a feasibility study for a combined heat and power gasifier unit, and have kept the door open for future partnership opportunities. Clearwater RC&D has also been able to assist with funding at various times.

The RC&D was also one of several partners to work with Framing Our Community on the video. “Are We Safe From Fire? Protecting Idaho Communities” includes testimony from residents of the Deer Creek Subdivision, whose homes were threatened by 2007’s Poe Cabin Fire. Homes that had been prepared with hazardous fuels reduction or defensible space survived.

Clearwater RC&D is planning an event to celebrate the Firewise award and the partnership. “It was such a fantastic product, for both homeowners and professional firefighters,” said Brannon.

The relationship has been mutually beneficial, said Dearstyne.

“For us to be effective, we need partners that offer strengths and resources we don’t have. (Clearwater RC&D) broaden our capacity and our network. It helps us to be more effective,” said Dearstyne.

The woody biomass-fed gasifier unit Framing Our Community is exploring could be the group’s next great success. The feasibility study was encouraging, with material coming from Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and private lands within a 30-mile radius. The close loop system also aims to operate at near 100 percent efficiency.

“Ideally, we’ll mix debris from production, as well as slash that comes from restoration and fuels reduction projects with solid waste – newspaper, magazine, cardboard boxes, construction materials that would otherwise go into a landfill 250 miles away,” said Dearstyne.

“Instead of it going up in smoke and affecting the air, it’ll become BTUs and kilowatts in an enclosed system.”

For more information about Framing Our Community, visit its Web site at http://www.framingourcommunity.org, or contact Joyce Dearstyne, executive director at joyce@framingourcommunity.org.

2. Family Forest Landowners and Managers Conference
The Clearwater RC&D Council is sponsoring the Family Forest Landowners and Managers Conference on March 22-24, 2010 in Moscow, Idaho. This is the 20th year for this annual conference which has played a key role in bringing together landowners, technical service providers, research and extension faculty and industry representatives. The conference focuses on issues facing the private landowner who wants to practice good stewardship. This year the emphasis will be on the alternative models for forest management, alternative forest products, cost-share opportunities in the Farm Bill program and collaborative management. 

The post-conference “Ties to the Land” workshop will be offered again this year. This workshop provides a forum for family forest owners to share insights on the successes and challenges of transitioning ownership and management to a new generation.

The partners who come together to make the conference a success are Idaho Department of Lands, U.S. Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Idaho Forest Owners Association, Idaho Tree Farm Program, Northwest Management, Inc., the University of Idaho and the Panhandle RC&D Council.

For more information contact Ree Brannon at 208-882-4960, ext. 110, or via email at ree.brannon@id.usda.gov.

3. Washington Cooperative Aims to Market Special Forest Products

In all corners of the country, landowners are examining new ways to generate revenue from the forest. In Northeast Washington, a unique cooperative is bringing private forest landowners together to sell a variety of special forest products.

In 2006, representatives from the Ferry, Pend Oreille, Spokane and Stevens County Conservation Districts, U.S. Forest Service, NRCS and the Washington DNR, along with several landowners, formed a steering committee to examine ways to stimulate the local economy in those four Washington counties. The group met when they could over the next few years, as often as once a month, to brainstorm ideas.

The steering committee decided to establish the Special Forest Products Cooperative, a group whose goal is to help private landowners market and sell special forest products found on their land. The cooperative acts as a broker that brings landowners, workers and markets together.

With help from a U.S. Forest Service grant, the group was able to hire Monica McMackin in March of 2009 to help build the cooperative. In addition to her duties as coordinator she also does natural resource work for the district on a part-time basis.

“What they wanted was a forester who could identify the plants and wildlife, but also someone with people and collaborative skills,” said McMackin. Thanks to the group’s hard work over the past year, McMackin believes the Special Forest Products Cooperative is ready to take its first real course of action in 2010. At present, more steering meetings are being held for participants in the four-county area. In spring 2010 the cooperative will begin to market its products.

The cooperative has explored many special forest products, but will make Christmas greenery a focus. Using western red cedar and western white pine, they hope to produce boughs that can be sold wholesale to a third party for wreath production. The cooperative also intends to market pine cones from Ponderosa pine for holiday ornaments.

“In time, hopefully we’ll be able to sell these products direct, maybe even get to a point where we’re selling the wreaths,” said McMackin.

She said the cooperative will also look into medicinal and wild edible products, as well as products used for craft materials.

While McMackin admits the cooperative can only provide landowners with supplemental income to start, it offers a wealth of other benefits that have people in northeastern Washington excited.

“The biggest benefit is that people will become good stewards of their land,” said McMackin. “Most of these people are interested in doing that now, they just don’t know how. With the training offered through the cooperative it will teach them how to harvest their land and how to identify what’s on their land.

“And it’s family-oriented, too,” said McMackin. “Parents are taking their kids out into the woods with them.”

For more information about the Special Forest Products Cooperative, contact coordinator Monica McMackin at 509-685-0937 ext.118, or via email at mmcmackin@co.stevens.wa.us.

4. Invasive Threatens Southeastern Forests

For close to a century, cogongrass has existed in a number of southeastern states. In more recent years, forestry and agricultural practices, along with highway maintenance, has helped the invasive weed to spread rapidly. It now has been identified throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and in parts of Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana. Just recently it was found in Tennessee.

Scientists say the aggressive growth of cogongrass poses a number of threats to forest management and wildlife habitat, and creates wildfire and smoke management issues. It is estimated that cogongrass has invaded more than one million acres of land in the southeast.

Dr. David J. Moorhead is a professor of forestry at the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health at the University of Georgia. Said Moorhead, “It’s one of the worst invasives on a worldwide basis, not only in the southeast United States but also in tropical and sub-tropical areas.”

Cogongrass is extremely aggressive and resilient; it can adapt to heavy shaded areas and open sites, and it tolerates flooding.

“About 60 percent of the total plant biomass is below ground,” said Moorhead. “It effectively out-competes herbaceous vegetation on the site so what you end up with is just a monoculture of cogongrass.

“If it happens to come in under existing trees, those trees will undoubtedly suffer some degree of growth loss and increases the chances of catastrophic wildfire. A major problem is that it takes away any potential for regeneration by seed or planting unless expensive and time consuming treatments are used to control cogongrass.”

It also poses a threat to our forests because it burns when it’s green and burns hotter than other vegetation.

According to Moorhead, people were starting to examine it as far back as the 1970s, but it’s been the past five years or so that states have started more aggressive programs to help control it. The U.S. Forest Service and other agencies have provided funding to states in the south to control cogongrass.

He believes education is the key to getting the invasive under control.

“In Georgia we’ve had a strong education program, particularly in the spring when the plant is flowering. It makes it easy to identify,” said Moorhead. The Georgia Forestry Commission works with other state cooperators to train foresters, land managers, highway maintenance crews and the general public on how to identify it. “The best thing is that, in Georgia, if you suspect you have cogongrass, you can contact your local forestry commission office or extension office and they’ll contact someone with the forestry commission to take a look at it. If it is cogongrass there’s a program in place to control it at no cost to the landowner.”

To effectively treat cogongrass, a soil active herbicide such as imazapyr is used to control the rhizomes. In most cases, those responsible for controlling it must return to do spot treatments for a second and sometimes third year before fully eradicating the invasive.

It is believed cogongrass first entered the United States at the port in Grand Bay, Alabama in the winter of 1912 as packing material for orange plants that came from Japan. It continues to enter our ports today; according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists assigned to a port in Savannah, more than 60 interceptions were made from commercial cargo containers in October and November of 2009 alone.

It is sometimes found as an ornamental grass in the northern states where it’s held mostly in check by freezing weather. In northern climates it has a reddish color, in the south it reverts back to its greenish form.

Because of its rapid growth, southerners attempted to find practical ways to use it. Cogongrass was used on test plots in Mississippi and Florida for its forage potential. They quickly found it wasn’t palatable and abandoned those. It was also used for erosion control on some coastal levees due to its salt tolerant nature, but again it became so aggressive that people stopped using it.

For more information about cogongrass and how to identify it, visit http://www.cogongrass.org.

5. Eisenberg Chosen to Lead NACD

Jeff Eisenberg took the helm as the National Association of Conservation Districts’ (NACD) new Chief Executive Officer on Feb. 1.

“Jeff has a true passion for conservation districts and their work. He has experience working for both conservation and landowner groups, and we are confident that his expertise and energy make him the right person to lead NACD,” said NACD President Steve Robinson.

Eisenberg brings strong Washington experience to the organization; his entire career has been dedicated to agriculture conservation issues. He most recently served as the Executive Director of the Public Lands Council, where he represented ranchers before Congress and the Executive Branch on a variety of natural resource issues such as climate change, the Farm Bill and endangered species. Prior to his tenure at the Public Lands Council, Eisenberg represented both the Klamath Water Users’ Association and The Nature Conservancy on natural resource issues. Eisenberg also provided legal services to the Forest Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Farm Service Agency and the Office of Energy in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the General Counsel for nearly a decade.

“I am extremely pleased to have been chosen to lead NACD,” Eisenberg said. “While the challenges facing conservation in America are great, the opportunities are even greater. NACD is well-positioned to lead the charge.”

Eisenberg was raised in Minnesota. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Scandinavian Studies and Political Science from the University of Minnesota and a juris doctor from the University of Wisconsin Law School.

6. Forestry Briefs

Study on private working forests and the economy
A new study, commissioned by the National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) and conducted by Forest2Market, quantifies the economic impact of private, working forests on the U.S. economy. The study found a significant gap between the contributions made by privately-owned forests over other ownership types. On average, they generate $277,000 in state GDP per 1,000 acres, while public forests generate just $41,000. Results of the study are available using the interactive map on NAFO’s Web site. The full study is available at http://www.forest2market.com/f2m-impact.

Tax tips for forest landowners
A bulletin released by the U.S. Forest Service summarizes federal income tax information useful to woodland owners in preparing their 2009 tax returns. To read the two-page tip sheet, visit http://www.timbertax.org/developments/TaxTip09-Final.pdf.

Guide offers helpful grant and resource information
The Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI), National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), and several USDA agencies have released a 108-page Building Sustainable Places Guide covering 64 grant, loan, and other resources from USDA and other federal agencies.

This guide aims to help farmers, landowners, consumers, small businesses and others that are interested in sustainable agriculture in both rural and urban areas identify federal programs that could advance their interests.

Building Sustainable Places Guide is available in hard copy and also online at http://www.attra.ncat.org/guide.  To obtain a free copy of the Building Sustainable Places guide, please contact ATTRA – National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service at 800-346-9140 or email debbier@ncat.org.