WDC28: Coordination of Western Regional Extension Forestry Activities
(Multistate Research Coordinating Committee and Information Exchange Group)
Status: Inactive/Terminating
WDC28: Coordination of Western Regional Extension Forestry Activities
Duration: 01/01/2013 to 09/30/2014
Administrative Advisor(s):
NIFA Reps:
Non-Technical Summary
Statement of Issues and Justification
We propose to create a WDC (Western Development Committee) to meet and prepare a proposal to address the issues described below that are common to all our states.
-Much is going right with stewardship of private and public forests in the West. There is a need to highlight these success stories and to build on them so we can learn from what is working.
-There are relatively few extension foresters in most of the West, with many states having none, the majority of states having three or less, and only two states having more than ten. Working together on regional programming and material development will increase our efficiency and program quality.
-Private forest lands in the West are increasingly being subdivided or fragmented into smaller parcels, making extension programming efforts difficult as numbers of landowners increase and more owners live away from their land. At the same time budgets have been reduced for extension and others who work with forest landowners, like state forestry agencies.
-Private forest landowners' backgrounds and goals for owning forest land in the West are shifting. Most new landowners have little, if any, forest management skills or knowledge to implement sound forest practices. Fragmentation means smaller ownerships with a trend away from commodity production to amenity provision as the purpose of owning land. Even if landowners want to sell forest products, it is increasingly difficult for smaller forest owners to manage economically for timber and other products. Traditional extension programs are less relevant to many of these people. so for extension foresters/educators to be effective they have to diversify and be flexible.
-Climate change models predict warmer and ultimately drier forests and concomitant changes in insect, disease, and fire regimes in much of the West. Certainly forest health conditions across the West have deteriorated in the past few decades. Threats from mountain pine beetle, root rot, wildlfire, and other health hazards are increasing. Forest owners and managers need educational programs and materials to help them make sound management decisions in the face of these changes and the uncertainty that exists about exactly what will happen and where.
-Much of the forest products industry infrastructure in the West has been lost. This can make it difficult for small landowners to make money from forest management and to pay for management activities. If they can't afford to manage their lands this can hasten fragmentation. Many new owners don't want to sell timber anyway, but small-scale production and non-timber forest products may be attractive to some. Extension needs to start educating landowners about such production potential.
-Though the traditional forest products industry in the West has declined, interest in use of biomass for energy is at an all-time high. Family forest lands may be located close to sites that would use biomass materials, so biomass harvest on these lands may be more economically feasible than more remote forests due to lower hauling costs. Citizens also are concerned about non-biomass energy development and its effects on forests. Extension education can help landowners, managers, and the public understand feasibility and tradeoffs in energy and bioenergy development.
-The majority of people in the West live in urban areas, and urbanization is increasing. Urban forests take on increased importance with such urbanization, but these urban forests are at risk from wildfire, tree loss from development, and tree health decline. There are very few extension educators in the West working in urban forestry, yet traditionally trained foresters can contribute to urban tree management education, which can make extension forestry relevant to the vast majority of the population base in the West who do not live in rural areas or own forest land.
We need a group of western extension forestry leaders that regularly meets and collaborates on projects of mutual interest. Such a group can more effectively address the issues mentioned above than individuals acting alone by helping the members avoid redundancy, trade ideas, gain new perspectives, and share time and efforts. It also will make us more competitive for funding from granting agencies and our partners. We look to Southern Regional Extension Forestry as a model of how to successfully collaborate on and fund projects. The previous WCC 1003 group worked together on several projects that were funded by USDA CSREES (now NIFA) and USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station. An MOU between that committee and Forest Service Research and Development also was developed then and that MOU can easily be renewed for this new committee. This makes it likely that the group can reform and succeed.