National Association of Conservation Districts

National Association of Conservation Districts

NACD's mission is to serve conservation districts by providing national leadership and a unified voice for natural resource conservation.

Forestry Notes

July 2009
Volume XIV, Issue 8
| PDF version | Archive of Previous Issues |

  1. Planting for the Future
  2. NACD Releases Three New Desk Guides
  3. JFSP Report on Biomass Challenges 'Conventional Wisdoms'
  4. Tidwell Named New USFS Chief
  5. Wight Selected to be NRCS National Forester
  6. F2M Presents Bioenergy Newsletter
  7. Forestry Briefs
  8. Conservation Calendar

1. Planting for the Future
Nevada Tahoe CD partners with USFS to lead restoration efforts in Tahoe Basin
Started by an illegal campfire, California’s Angora Fire destroyed more than 250 structures and burned more than 3,000 acres in the summer of 2007. It also stole much of the scenic beauty from the South Lake Tahoe region.

Not long after the fire was extinguished, local residents began to discuss a restoration plan. The result is the Angora Fire Urban Forest Stewardship Project, which has since helped to plant more than 9,000 native trees in the area.

Last fall, Eric Winford, the environmental scientist for the Nevada Tahoe Conservation District, noticed a grant announcement that dealt with work on federal lands. He then made contact with Forest Service representatives in the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit to gather more information. By October 2008 the group had secured funding -- $15,000 from the National Forest Foundation, $10,000 from the Forest Service and $5,000 from Project Learning Tree – and soon after began project planning and coordination.

Said Winford, “We wanted to get as many local groups involved as possible.” That included the Tahoe Resource Conservation District, Project Learning Tree, leaders from the nearby casinos, resorts and local service groups, and local school districts. The group outlined a plan that would impact urban forested areas.

“The Angora Basin is unique,” said NTCD district manager Doug Martin, “in that the US Forest Service manages lands within residential neighborhoods. This fire burnt 60 residential lots, so our focus on this project was to work on the urban parcels.”

Project leaders presented a one-hour “Trees are Terrific” program to more than 700 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders as part of the Project Learning Tree grant. Later, all of the children participated in re-planting efforts.

“The idea was that we would first teach the kids about trees, then take them out into the field so they could get first-hand experience,” said Martin.

In future years, the school will take those kids back out into the field to monitor the plantings as part of the project’s stewardship plan. Said Winford, “It’s immeasurable. We now have 700 people, who 20 years from now will drive by these forests and be able to say, ‘I helped to plant those trees.’”

The American Forest Foundation also assisted in the re-planting; said Martin, the AFF approached the district and sent 50 volunteers from San Jose to assist. The nearby US Forest Service nursery supplied the Jeffrey pine, sugar pine, incense cedar and red fir seedlings. Said Martin, $5 a tree “is a heck of an investment with all of the outreach that’s happened with this project.”

In all, more than 1,000 volunteers helped to plant the seedlings. According to Martin, the dollar value of the volunteer assistance, including coordination efforts from leaders from 40 various organizations, equaled roughly $30,000 – the same total the project accepted in grant funds.

Said Martin, “One thing we recognized with this project was that you can hire a contractor to plant trees for much cheaper, but it’s far more rewarding to include a stewardship plan and get partners involved.”

The Nevada Tahoe Conservation District views the project as a success made possible by its many partners. And the educational component is something that, according to Winford, should continue to pay dividends many years down the road. Said Winford, “Districts should really be talking about Project Learning Tree.”

The Forest Service has continued to remove hazardous trees in the area. The district also has much more work to do, and is presently seeking volunteers to remove competing vegetation and monitor the survival of the young trees. The area is exploring long-term planning that will include reducing fuel loads near neighborhoods, reforestation, stream channel and wetland restoration and road and trail system redesign.

For more information on the Angora Fire Urban Forest Stewardship Project, contact Eric Winford, environmental scientist for the Nevada Tahoe Conservation District at 775-586-1610, ext. 26, or via email at ewinford@ntcd.org.

2. NACD Releases Three New Desk Guides
NACD, through its cooperative agreement with the Department of the Interior and the US Forest Service, has released three new desk guides aimed to assist local resource leaders with questions pertaining to wildfire, disaster debris and biomass utilization.

Three separate teams began work on the desk guides in summer 2008. Each publication will be posted as a PDF on the NACD Web site, with a limited number of print copies expected for each.
Project manager Fred Deneke was pleased with how each of the guides turned out.

“I see these three desk guides as a fitting culmination of the five years of work with the Forest Service and Department of Interior on the National Fire Plan and Woody Biomass Utilization,” said Deneke. “What better way to end the project than producing three important “hands-on” documents that can be used by conservation districts, RC&D’s, county officials, and Extension agents in leadership efforts with their communities on these important areas of work.

“Not only that,” added Deneke, “it also provides them with the guidance and tools to work in full partnership with their state and federal forestry departments on issues that affect nearly every rural community across the nation.”

The guides can also complement one another. In certain areas of the country, for example, the debris and wildfire desk guides will work in unison, helping local resource leaders begin to solve the problems they face.

Here is a quick look at each guide:

3. JFSP Report on Biomass Challenges 'Conventional Wisdoms'
The Joint Fire Science Program recently released “Conventional Wisdoms of Woody Biomass Utilization: Characterizing Lessons from Federal Biomass Removal Projects” an 84-page report exploring the traditional challenges faced when trying to utilize the biomass collected from fuels reduction projects. Six authors from different regions of the country, and different organizations, interviewed representatives from state and federal agencies, local government, project planning, loggers, manufacturers and  various community partners and organizations.

The report tackles ten conventional wisdoms of woody biomass utilization:

Said one of its authors, Dennis Becker of the University of Minnesota Department of Forest Resources, “The hope is it will challenge people to re-think what the problems are in their area. We all know what the traditional problems have been and I think we get tunnel vision as to what the solution should be.”

Becker said region is a big issue when discussing biomass at a national scale. “The problems are not uniform,” he said. “When looking at national level legislation there are real challenges in how we craft that legislation so that it helps all of these different areas.”

Another of the report’s authors, Pam Jakes of the US Forest Service’s Northern Research Station, said another common mistake has dealt with the size of prospective biomass projects. “People seem to think that the silver bullet is these huge projects that consume large volumes of material – that bigger is better. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s more important to find the right scale, one that fits local supply and markets,” said Jakes.

To read the report, visit http://biomass.forestguild.org.

4. Tidwell Named New USFS Chief
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that Tom Tidwell will serve as the new Chief for the US Forest Service.

“Tom Tidwell’s 32 years of experience in our forests and impressive track record of collaboration and problem-solving will help us tackle the great challenges ahead,” said Vilsack.

Tidwell’s field experience includes working from the rural areas of Nevada and Idaho to the urban forests in California and the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in Utah, where he served as forest supervisor during the 2002 Winter Olympics. He also has extensive fire experience, beginning as a firefighter, and accumulating 19 years as an agency administrator responsible for fire suppression decisions.

Tidwell has a variety of experience beginning his Forest Service career on the Boise National Forest, and has since worked in eight different national forests, across three regions. He has worked at all levels of the agency in a variety of positions, including district ranger, forest supervisor, and legislative affairs specialist in the Washington office.

“We thank Gail Kimbell for her leadership and deep commitment to protecting our nation’s forests,” Vilsack added.

5. Wight Selected to be NRCS National Forester
Bruce Wight has been named NRCS’s new national forester.

Wight currently serves as NRCS’s National Agroforester, located at the USDA National Agroforestry Center in Lincoln, Neb. He jointly leads, with a US Forest Service counterpart, the technology transfer and application team at the center.

For nearly two decades, Wight has provided national leadership in the development and revision of the NRCS forestry and agroforestry practice standards; for promoting the developing of forest ecological site descriptions and other forest soil interpretations; and for collaboration with state forestry and Forest Service in developing common criteria for the forest management plans.

Wight will officially assume the post as national forester in Washington D.C. on July 19, 2009.

6. F2M Presents Bioenergy Newsletter
In June, Forest2Market, Inc. (F2M) published a new wood bioenergy newsletter, Forest2Fuel, which covers “the state of the wood bioenergy industry in the United States as well as international factors affecting U.S. markets.”

According to F2M, the newsletter covers the full spectrum of woody feedstocks -- biomass, chips, mill residues, wood waste, construction and demolition debris, and crop trees -- to the range of fuel types—wood pellet manufacturing, biopower generators, and wood-based ethanol producers. In addition, the newsletter includes updates on new business development in the wood bioenergy industry, as well as plans that have been stalled or abandoned. It also covers capital investment trends, federal and state government incentives, loans and grants, changes in regulations and policies, technological advancements and snags, and developments in overseas markets that will affect woody biomass and wood bioenergy suppliers in the United States.

For more information, visit the Forest2Market Web site at http://www.forest2market.com (information about the Forest2Fuel newsletter is at the bottom of the page).

7. Forestry Briefs
NACD joins 41 organizations in pushing for forestry offsets
In May, NACD signed on with more than 40 organizations to a joint letter to U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce and Subcommittee on Energy and Environment leadership urging the inclusion of forestry offsets in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey). This is part of NACD’s ongoing work with the Forest Climate Working Group coalition to ensure recognition of forestry in practical and effective federal climate change legislation.

2011 forests stewardship theme announced
NACD is making plans for future years’ Stewardship efforts. NACD’s 2010 Stewardship materials will carry a habitat and wildlife theme with a conservation focus. NACD’s Stewardship and Education Committee will be determining the official theme; readers are encouraged to share theme ideas with the Committee via email at stewardship@nacdenet.org.

The United Nations has declared 2011 the International Year of the Forests. To join forces with a variety of partners in promoting forestry-related education materials, efforts and projects, NACD’s 2011 Stewardship materials will carry a forestry theme.

Additonal information regarding NACD’s stewardship and education materials and efforts is available at http://nacdnet.org/stewardship&education/.

Tree Owner’s Manual available
The Tree Owner’s Manual is now available to property owners seeking information about caring for one of the most valuable assets on their land—its trees.

The US Forest Service created the Tree Owner’s Manual to answer common questions about tree care -- from planting, fertilizing, and pruning to troubleshooting signs of damage, injury, and disease. The manual also lists numerous organizations and sources of more information for keeping trees healthy and growing.

The booklet is available in a simple black and white format that is easy to download and inexpensive to reproduce. USFS will help organizations or businesses customize the cover of the manual with their own logo.

To download a copy or to request a customized version with a logo on the cover, visit http://www.fs.fed.us/fstoday/090424/03.0About_Us/manual.html

Wilkes withdraws as nominee for Under Secretary
Dr. Homer Wilkes, who serves as State Conservationist in Mississippi with NRCS, has asked his name to be withdrawn from consideration as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment. 

8. Conservation Calendar