Sustainable Forest Biomass Conference Call - May 29, 2008
This discussion explored public perception surrounding forest management and how that perception influences the willingness of the public to accept and support biomass utilization efforts on both public and private lands. There was general agreement among the participants that perception is colored strongly by location and experience – rural communities are generally more comfortable with forestry, agriculture, and other land management practices and therefore friendlier towards biomass utilization. Rural communities are also more vulnerable to wildfires and more interested in management practices that could lessen their impacts. Urban communities, on the other hand, are less familiar and less comfortable with active land management. This lack of familiarity often manifests itself as a distrust of forest management, the forest products industry, and federal land management agencies. This ideological split is also seen within the environmental community. Rural, land-based conservation organizations are more likely to see the value of biomass utilization for accomplishing a wide variety of goals, whereas environmental organizations based in cities and funded through private subscriptions mirror the concerns and opinions of their urban membership. The dichotomy is evident, at times, even between local and national branches of the same organization. Distrust is not limited to urban groups, though. A number of rural conservation and community organizations have had bad experiences collaborating with federal agencies and these experiences have colored perception of the faithfulness and efficacy of those agencies. In general, though, public-private collaboration was seen to better relations between the two and decrease the likelihood of litigation (which, it was felt, is often overstated). A majority of stewardship contract participants, for instance, reported that the experience was a positive one and one they would be willing to repeat.
Detailed Notes of the Conference Call (.PDF)
Biomass Document that Fred mentioned (.PDF)
Article on Lakeview from Jim (.PDF)
Pinchot Institute Report on Programmatic Monitoring of Stewardship Contracts (.PDF)
Some links to additional resources (from Dennis):
Exploring Barriers to Collaborative Forestry (.PDF)
Collaboration in Natural Resources Management (.PDF)
A good example of how a local collaborative forged the way for biomass utilization in the face of litigation
USFS Woody Biomass Utilization Deskguide (.PDF)
A website in development that will host case studies of ~40 biomass utilization cases from around the country
Southwest Oregon interagency biomass utilization strategy (.PDF)
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