Project Plans FY08

Forest Conservation

Project Leader: Paul Catanzaro

Project Year: 2008 

Brief Description

Sixty-two percent of Massachusetts is forested. The overwhelming majority, Seventy-nine percent, of our forests are owned by over 212,000 non-industrial, private forest owners. There are 46,554 non-industrial, private landowners in MA with land of 10 acres or more who own 2.2 million acres, accounting for 86% of the state's forests.

Forests provide ecosystem services including climate regulation, freshwater supply, stormwater mitigation, nutrient regulation, biodiversity, soil retention and aesthetics valued at $2.9 billion according to Mass Audubon (2003). In landscapes dominated by small, private forest ownership, these critical ecosystem services are provided free of charge by family forest owners to the general public.

Everyday, Massachusetts loses over 40 acres of open space (MA Audubon, 2003). The average age of these forest land owners is approximately 60 years. A significant portion of this land will be transferring ownership or generations over the coming years. To safeguard the future sustainability of public benefits from these private forest landscapes, it is imperative that family forest owners make informed decisions about their woodlands.

Often, landowners and communities do not actively think about forest conservation until a decision about it must be made. Most landowners enjoy their woodlots for its privacy and aesthetics on a daily basis, giving little or no thought to it until something triggers a decision point regarding the management of the woods or the future status of the property. We must deliver accurate information to landowners at these crucial decision making points!

Forest Conservation Project Description

It is our belief that an outreach and educational initiative that seeks to develop a network of conservation minded landowners, community leaders, and opinion makers, supported by internet resources is the most effective, efficient method to encourage communication and informed decision making at these critical conservation junctions.

The goal of the Forest Conservation project is to put into place in each community the people that can deliver accurate information at crucial decision making times. It is not the intent to create "para-professionals", but instead arm influential citizens with the information to encourage others to contact the right people and to ask the right questions. We recognize that networks of respected community leaders is one of the most effective ways of spreading information and assisting peers and communities to make informed decisions about their forest resources. Our programs include:

• Keystone - In ecology, a keystone species is one whose impacts on its environment are larger and greater than would be expected from one species. Like the Coverts program before, the Keystone project selects and educates forest owners and community leaders who have a significant impact on their communities in a 3.5 day retreat style program. The program is held each spring and is complimented by annual reunion/refresher workshops each fall.
• Woods Forums - An educational program delivered in a 3-5 town cluster. The program consists of a short presentation, which includes maps of their local landscapes, and discussion of local issues. Importantly, underlying emphasis will be placed on what landowners can learn from each other, rather than a more traditional approach to workshops, where foresters teach “landowner-students”. Therefore, the bulk of time is dedicated to an open forum discussion in which landowners ask questions and discuss topics of interest to them. In addition, the program includes the presence of local conservation organizations and local land trusts to add to the discussion. The intent is to stimulate local “conservation conversations”.
• Connecting People and Partners - Distills strategic land conservation models (e.g, CAPS, WMPI) into a form that that non-expert, municiple officials and community members can use to prioritize land for conservation. By determing a piece of land's conservation value(s), community members can find the most approrpiate conservation partner (e.g, land trust, state agency) to contact for assistance in conservation. The approach seeks to develop a network of informed citizens in each community through community leader training and internet resources. A pilot project has been completed and am now pursuing funding with conservation partners MA TNC and TTOR to expand the project to the Westfield Watershed.

We are focusing our research efforts to quantifying the impacts of information networks on landowners decisions to better capture the impacts of this approach.

Internet based tools can assist in the development of these networks and can also serve to provide information on people and resources to assist landowners and communities in their conservation decisions. Our internet resources include:

• ACORN (A CoOperative Resource Network), is a USDA NRI integrated research/extension grant, is an interactive website designed for landowners and others interested in the forests of the Westfield and Deerfield watersheds of w. Massachusetts. The site (http://www.massacorn.net/index.html) includes information of local relevance and encourages interactive participation through a mapserver (providing spatial information), threaded discussion, and an “Ask the Forester” page. The intent of ACORN is to provide continuously updated, locally relevant information to encourage forest landowners to make informed decisions, to communicate with one another, to see their property as part of a larger whole, to interact with local organizations in their watershed (i.e. Land Trusts, conservation organizations, municipal open space committees, etc...) The prototype ACORN (http://forest.fnr.umass.edu/acorn/) has been developed for two watersheds in VT and has been running with very encouraging results for over two years.
• MassWoods.net is a web site (http://www.masswoods.net/index.html) to deliver information to landowners at critical conservation junctures, making a decision to either sell their timber and/or are planning the future of their land. The site features an image map which provides contact information for the local service forester, private foresters, land trusts, and conservation organizations on a town basis.
• MassKeystone.net (http://masskeystone.net) is the website for the Keystone project and includes a contact map to find cooperators across the state and their community roles (e.g., landowner, land trust, municipal board) In addition, a listserve has been launched for Keystone Cooperators.
• We also recognize the important role resource professionals, land protection specialists, municipal officials and policy makers in supporting family forest owners. They also play a critical role in the network. The Forest Conservation project also strives to provide continuing education to professionals and science based information to policy makers.
• Since most landowners and communities don't think about land until a decision about it must be made, we must be able to deliver information at these critical conservation decision points. We believe that networks of informed community leaders supported by internet resources provides trusted, locally relevant information at the time these decisions arise to help landowners make an informed decision about their land.

Activities

• MassWoods.net - maintain and expand our landowner website
• Keystone (formerly Coverts) forest conservation training for landowners and community leaders, including the maintenance and expansion of the Keystone website.
• Woods Forums
• ACORN - a locally-based, interactive website for landowners
• Late successional forest management research and outreach project - Silviultural treatments to accelerate the development of old-growth structure and a related outreach publication
• Economic viability of land ownership in the Deerfield Watershed - Determine the financial pressures faced by landowners and the ability of conservation tools to make ownership viable
• Southern New England Stumpage Price Survey - Ongoing quarterly survey, analysis, and reporting of stumpage prices in MA, CT, and RI, in collaboration with Steve Broderick (CT) and Tom Abbott (RI).
• Conservation Cases - Develop more case studies detailing stories, through the "Cases of Conservation" class offered in NRC, from across the state of how landowners have protected their land through various diverse and creative ways.
• Forest Education Workshops/presentations
• Massachusetts Forester Licensing - Maintenance of web site of MA forester licensing information.
• Connecting People and Partners - Developing an approach to increase strategic land conservation in small communities through community information networks and land prioritization models

Inputs: Time and Effort

Outcomes

• Participants adopt land management practices that protect and enhance water, other natural resources and ecosystems
• Participants develop the knowledge and skills to adopt land management practices that protect and enhance water, other natural resources and ecosystems
• Participants promote, implement or participate in strategic land conservation programs that protect ecosystems, water and other natural resources
• Participants develop the knowledge and skills to promote, implement or participate in strategic land conservation programs that protect ecosystems, water and other natural resources.

Extension program related to this project: Natural Resource & Environmental Conservation