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

November 2009
Volume XIV, Issue 12
| PDF version | Archive of Previous Issues |

  1. Washington Knows the Way
  2. Analyzing the Decline of Tree Planting in the South
  3. 2009 SFI Annual Conference
  4. Applications Open for 2010 JFSP Grants
  5. Forestry Briefs

1. Washington Knows the Way
EQIP and strong partnerships are helping forestry to thrive in the Evergreen State

Through collaboration, innovation, and good hard work forestry is growing in the State of Washington. More trees are being planted and more acres being managed thanks to the growth of the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) and the help of the state’s conservation districts.


District education, sharing
In June, at the annual Washington Association of District Employees (WADE) conference, five or six sessions were dedicated to forestry topics. Said Doug Rushton, the Thurston Conservation District supervisor and a member of the NACD Forest Resource Policy Group, “What we’re trying to do is educate district folks on the importance of forestry.”

“You’d think because we’re Washington State, the evergreen state, it wouldn’t be a problem,” adds Rushton, “but the history of conservation districts, even here, has been more agriculture than forestry.”

Woody biomass and carbon sequestration discussion in the state has helped to push forestry to the forefront. Said Rushton, “The iron is hot and we’re trying to strike.”

One effective technique, says Rushton, has been to set up a page on the Washington State Association of Conservation Districts Web site to share forest-related news.

The State Association office also conducted a survey of forestry activity among every conservation district around the state. A series of questions was sent to each district office, and was later followed with a phone call. Most districts participated, says Rushton, and a large number claimed to have employees with forestry experience and/or access to equipment. Ultimately, he says, the goal of the survey is to help districts to pool resources and share success stories. “We hope to update that list every six months or so,” Rushton says.

The survey is valuable, and something Rushton encourages other states to consider. “It shows you where your resources are. If I’m a district that has a forestry need, and can’t afford to hire my own forester, maybe I can rent one from an adjoining district.”

Rushton plans to discuss the survey at the annual state conservation district meeting in December. To learn more about it, see http://www.wacd.org and highlight ‘About’ and then ‘Committees’.


An award-winning formula
One key to making forestry work in Washington has been EQIP. Like other active forestry states, Washington experienced a boom in its forest management practices enrollment when the 2008 Farm Bill clarified EQIP’s role in private forestlands.

But conservationists in Washington had more opportunity than other states to play with.

Says Dave Brown, NRCS’ assistant state conservationist for programs, “A couple of years ago, recognizing that Washington has a huge acreage of private forestland but at that time a fairly low level of participation in EQIP, we ramped up our efforts to make forest landowners aware of what can be accomplished through the program, and we brought together the main players in the state to do that.”

That partnership – which brought together the state offices for NRCS and the Forest Service, the Washington Department of Natural Resources and others – helped to spread the word about EQIP rapidly, and last December was awarded a 2008 Two Chiefs’ Award.

Thanks to the group’s efforts, and to the 2008 Farm Bill, EQIP practices increased in Washington 10-fold in just a four-year period. One example highlighted during the award presentation was the group’s ability to secure $600,000 in EQIP funding to support family forest landowners whose lands had been adversely affected by winter wind storms.

“It was nice to be recognized for what we did,” says Brown,” but we didn’t go into it trying to impress anybody. We saw the need, and this just seemed like the right way to go about it.”

The partnership relies heavily on its 10 local working groups to get the word out, each led by a conservation district.

“They come together once a year, look at resource concerns and provide to NRCS a recommendation for how to prioritize that funding,” says Brown. “Conservation districts initiate the process for us at the local level. They have the ability to bring a lot of people together, and can play that role much better than the federal government can at that level. They’re certainly an integral partner.”

What do future years hold for EQIP in the state? “More of the same,” expects Brown.


Getting the work done on the ground
Garth Davis is the forestry program manager for the Spokane County Conservation District. He says his office has seen first-hand the growth of EQIP that Brown speaks of.

“We’ve had quite a bit of success signing up people for EQIP cost-share,” says Davis, “and in turn we act as a technical service provider for the local NRCS office to help them create plans for the EQIP practices – generally a lot of fuels reduction, some planting.”

Another forest health-related project in the Spokane area has been to help landowners take preventative measures against fire. Says Davis, a large chunk of stimulus money was used in adjacent counties that border U.S. Forest Service lands, but there remains a number of homes doing work in his district. “We’re still working with three different homeowners organizations to begin fuels reduction projects, or continue ones we’ve done in the past.” The district offers a free home site assessment to anyone concerned about the threat their home faces from wildfire.

More work can be done, however, says Davis, and the solution may be additional EQIP funding.

“It’s extremely important,” Davis says of EQIP’s role. “EQIP is paperwork intensive, being a federal program, but the people who have signed up and gone through it have been very satisfied.”

Another indicator of EQIP’s impact: Spokane Country Conservation District has an annual plant sale. “We sell a lot of reforestation seedlings to people who are doing EQIP contracts,” says Davis.

2. Analyzing the Decline of Tree Planting in the South
According to annual research done by Steve Chapman with the Georgia Forestry Commission, planting levels throughout the South have been on a constant decline. Chapman annually polls state foresters in southern states, and the information received from those that respond has shown sharply declining numbers over the past decade.
For example, pine plantings in the south dropped from more than two million acres in 2001 to just under one million in 2008; hardwood plantings also dropped significantly, from more than 150,000 acres in 2001 to just more than 80,000 in 2008. And, in each year but one during that period, pine plantings decreased from the year prior.
Researchers, foresters and conservationists all seem to agree that the decline is very real, and all agree that it is a cause for concern – though not all have the same level of concern – but the reason for the decline varies depending upon region.

Twenty years ago in South Carolina, Hurricane Hugo damaged 4.5 million acres across 23 counties in the state, reducing the softwood inventory 21 percent. Of the damaged acreage, one million needed reforestation.

“All of those acres were in one form or another regenerated, either naturally or by planting trees. That created a huge wall of wood that has been moving through the system in South Carolina as it ages,” said Tim Adams, the director of the Resource Development Division of the South Carolina Forestry Commission.

CRP in the mid-1980s put a lot of acres into forestry that would not have otherwise been. In 1988, for example, more than 68,000 acres went into CRP plantations.

“It wasn’t as large of a factor, but it was significant. Both of those facts, though, created a lot of young forests that have been growing vigorously and reached maturity five or six years ago,” said Adams.

Starting in 2003, South Carolina had a growth in its forest products industry. Biomass has done very well, where $1.1 billion in capital was invested last year alone. The forest industry, as a whole, is important to South Carolina. It’s the number one manufacturing industry in the state, contributing $17.4 billion annually to the state’s economic climate.

“We’re riding the crest of a wave in South Carolina. It’s a positive story that we have to tell so far, but with regard to tree planting, there’s a storm cloud on the horizon that we’re starting to tell people about.”

The storm Adams speaks of is the lack of re-planting in the state.

Adams has done long-term projections looking at how the current demand coupled with a decreasing number of plantings would impact the state’s industry. “Because of a lack of regeneration our pulp wood supply might see a peak then decline over the next decade.”

The state planted 164 million seedlings in 1987 during the height of CRP. Little more than a decade later that number had dropped to 105 million. Numbers continued to decline, and in 2009 the state saw its lowest planting total since 1972 – just 43 million seedlings.

The perfect number? Adams predicted the state would need to plant around 100 million seedlings per year to keep up with the industry’s projected pace. To help, Adams has started the ‘Grow Some Green’ campaign to make state folks aware of potential pitfalls of decreased tree plantings in the state.

In other areas of the south, a poor sawtimber market could be to blame for low planting numbers. Wrote Brian Fiacco on The Timberlands Blog he manages for TimberlandStrategies.com:

There is clearly some sound logic behind this observation … During the late 1980’s, national planting levels peaked at the three million acre mark and the lion’s share of that was in the South. Today we are thinning those plantations and that is what is providing much of the resource for pulp production. In addition, the shift in timberland ownership from pulp and paper companies to institutional owners has probably resulted in a lengthening of pine rotations by a couple of years as the ownership objectives shifted from maximizing mean annual increment to maximizing return on investment. High planting levels of the late 80’s and lengthening rotations have clearly provided a thinning opportunity. So..., we are living on the investment of previous tree planters.
Added Fiacco: The other clear driver behind the lack of planting is the sawtimber market. Low demand resulting in low sawlog prices means reduced sales and reduced final harvest cutting (clearcuts) and that results in a reduced need for planting.

The debate as to the ‘why’ is, though, in many ways secondary to the research and the need to get a feel for where accurate planting numbers should be throughout the south.

Fiacco has used his site and blog to pressure the few state foresters that do not participate with Chapman’s research to do so, and he addressed the topic of southern tree planting decline at the Southern Forest Tree Improvement Conference in Blacksburg, Va., and at the North Carolina Forestry Association Meeting in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“I’m not as concerned as I was a year ago when I first came across (Chapman’s) survey data,” said Fiacco. “The declining numbers are serious, but what we’ve found is that the wood procurement people are just not clearcutting because of the markets.

“It looks good for the sawmills long-term but much more competitive for pulp and paper.”

Adams has seen the same issue in South Carolina, where harvests have declined. “If you don’t harvest,” he said, “you don’t need to replant.”

Plus, a poor economy has hurt.

Said Adams, the economy has reduced the demand on our forest resources temporarily, but the long-term trends of reduced tree planting are still in place.  New federal energy policies could reverse tree-planting trends quickly, though, as trees are planted for biomass markets.

To learn more about Grow Some Green, visit http://www.state.sc.us/forest. Fiacco’s blog can be found by visiting http://www.timberlandstrategies.com.

3. 2009 SFI Annual Conference
The 14th annual SFI Inc. conference – “SFI Program – 2010 and Beyond” – explored issues such as green building, responsible procurement, and ecosystem services, and offered a preview of the draft revised SFI 2010-2014 Standard, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2010.

The 200+ delegates who attended the September event in Nashville, Tenn. represented every link of the forest supply chain, including small and large landowners, government, professional foresters, conservation groups, academia, aboriginal communities, auditors, buyers, forest products companies and biologists.  Forestry Project Coordinator Fred Deneke attended for NACD and serves on the SFI External Review Panel which provides diverse perspectives and expertise to SFI and assures that public documents, including the annual progress report and data, are objective and credible; facilitate public input into the program; and identify emerging issues and opportunities.

During the conference, Larry Selzer, President and CEO of The Conservation Fund, won the first Dr. Sharon Haines Memorial Award for Innovation and Leadership in Sustainability, sponsored by SFI and International Paper. Others recognized for conservation or communication activities included International Forest Products Ltd. (Interfor), Crown Pine Timber LP, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, Irving Consumer Products, and the Maine SFI Implementation Committee.

4. Applications Open for 2010 JFSP Grants
The Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) is interested in sponsoring projects that stimulate and support activities that lead to or advance innovative ideas in fire social sciences. JFSP is particularly interested in collaborative projects with international partners, partnerships with scientists and institutions in closely allied fields that have not been heavily involved in fire research (e.g., natural hazards and disaster research), and innovative cross-disciplinary activities to enhance understanding of fire and fuel management policy options.

The goal is to push the frontiers of knowledge and understanding and to generate new ideas and concepts. The types of activities appropriate to this task statement are broad, and could include:

There are three distinct task statements ...

The primary solicitation seeks research proposals for the following topics:

The second solicitation seeks synthesis proposals for two topics:

The third solicitation seeks new science proposals related to social science topics.

Proposal will be submitted electronically to the JFSP website at http://www.firescience.gov. Full instructions are available on the Web site. The announcement will close on November 20 at 5 p.m. MT.

For more information, contact Tim Swedberg, JFSP communication director, at (208) 387-5865, or email him at timothy_swedberg@nifc.blm.gov.

5. Forestry Briefs

Loudenslager steps down as NACD CEO
The National Association of Conservation Districts announced in early October that Doug Loudenslager has stepped down as the Association’s Chief Executive Officer. NACD President Steve Robinson expressed his appreciation for Loudenslager’s commitment to conservation and service to NACD. Loudenslager said he appreciated the chance to serve NACD and its members but that it was in the best interests of him, his family and NACD for him to seek other opportunities at this time.

NACD leadership announced a selection process for a new Chief Executive Officer. NACD Director of Member Services Brad Ross will serve as Interim CEO during the transition and can be reached at brad-ross@nacdnet.org.


USFS Urban and Community Cost-Share Grants Open
The 2010 U.S. Forest Service National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost Share Grant instructions and application are available now. Pre-Proposals must be posted to http://www.grants.gov or Courier hard copies received by December 15, 2009.

Innovation proposals selected for full proposals will be tentatively due by March 17, 2010. The U.S. Forest Service will award the successful projects as Federal Financial Assistance grants no later than September 30, 2010. For more information, please see http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/nucfac, or contact Nancy Stremple, executive staff, at (202) 205-7829, or email her at nstremple@fs.fed.us.


Endowment and Partners Announce Plan for Conservation Easement Database
The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment), with generous support of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation, recently announced a collaborative initiative to create the first national database of conservation easement information.  When completed, the National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) will for the first time show a comprehensive picture of the estimated 40 million acres of privately owned conservation easement lands across America.  This overview will allow better strategic planning for conservation and development.

“Nearly a decade into the technology-driven 21st century there remains no single source of information on private lands that have been voluntarily protected for future generations of Americans,” said Endowment President Carlton Owen.  “We’ve been working with a range of cooperators in resource agencies and the conservation community to determine what is needed and how to fill the void.”  The Endowment’s Board approved a $1 million investment to create NCED.  The system will balance public interests with private needs and concerns such as confidentiality and rights of private owners.

For more information, please see http://www.usendowment.org.