Forest Views: Shifting Attitudes Toward the Environment in Northeast Oregon

This brief reports on a telephone survey conducted in fall 2014 as part of the ongoing Communities and Forests in Oregon (CAFOR) project. CAFOR focuses on seven counties in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon (Baker, Crook, Grant, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa, and Wheeler), where the landscape and local livelihoods are changing in interconnected ways. In an effort to inform policy development around natural resource management, the study seeks to understand how public perceptions of climate change and forest management intersect. Authors Angela Boag, Joel Hartter, Lawrence Hamilton, Forrest Stevens, Mark Ducey, Michael Palace, Nils Christoffersen, and Paul Oester report that 65 percent of those surveyed believe that forests are less healthy than they were twenty years ago. Approximately half of residents support increased user fees to improve forest health on federal land, and a majority believes that climate change is happening, although opinion is split between those who believe it is human-caused and those who believe it is caused by natural forces. The authors conclude that innovative economic and policy solutions are needed across the Inland West to help people and forests regain a strong and productive relationship that both supports livelihoods and sustains working landscapes

Does it matter if people think climate change is human caused?

There is a growing consensus that climate is changing, but beliefs about the causal factors vary widely among the general public. Current research shows that such causal beliefs are strongly influenced by cultural, political, and identity-driven views. We examined the influence that local perceptions have on the acceptance of basic facts about climate change. We also examined the connection to wildfire by local people. Two recent telephone surveys found that 37% (in 2011) and 46% (in 2014) of eastern Oregon (USA) respondents accept the scientific consensus that human activities are now changing the climate. Although most do not agree with that consensus, large majorities (85–86%) do agree that climate is changing, whether by natural or human causes. Acceptance of anthropogenic climate change generally divides along political party lines, but acceptance of climate change more generally, and concerns about wildfire, transcend political divisions. Support for active forest management to reduce wildfire risks is strong in this region, and restoration treatments could be critical to the resilience of both communities and ecosystems. Although these immediate steps involve adaptations to a changing climate, they can be motivated without necessarily invoking human-caused climate change, a divisive concept among local landowners

Community Forestry Research Fellowship: Ten Year Assessment and Future Prospects

Prepared for the 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources. March 13 -15, 2008, Oregon State University.The Community Forestry Research Fellowship was founded in 1996 with the aim of “building the field of community forestry” as a legitimate field of academic inquiry. The Ford Foundation financed this new program to provide opportunities for universities and graduate students to engage in applied, participatory research in community forestry in the United States. The program’s strategy was to provide funding directly to graduate students, who would in turn identify and involve community partners and university faculty in research meaningful to all. Over the ten years that the program has been in existence it has supported 78 fellows from 25 institutions in research conducted in 26 states. Some communities have been involved with numerous students, leading to sustained interaction with the program. The program has evolved with respect to program structure, scope, and strategy. A major effort has been made to diversify the student population with respect to racial, ethnic, and cultural background, including development of an undergraduate program serving Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Moreover, program focus has broadened to address natural resource issues in both rural and urban settings. Having recently completed a ten year external assessment, the program is now undergoing intensive discussion of goals, objectives and strategies. The program is exploring ways to facilitate long-term university-community partnerships in order to build community capacity and resilience. It also aspires to improve understanding within the academy of the complexities of rural community development and natural resource management. This paper describes the program, shares results of the ten year assessment, and considers the program’s future prospects. It discusses more generally the challenges of program development and maintenance, securing funding, and dealing with the shifting priorities of funders

An Experiential Learning Approach to Graduate Education

Prepared for the 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources, March 13 -15, 2008, Oregon State University.This paper assesses the promises and challenges associated with developing, conducting, and funding a rigorous, interdisciplinary, graduate field course with a strong experiential learning foundation. The course, Communities and Natural Resources, is designed to provide students from diverse backgrounds with an interdisciplinary, experiential learning opportunity. While the authors handle course logistics and provide students with relevant theoretical foundations from several disciplines, the actual instructors are county commissioners, health and education professionals, natural resource managers, ranchers, forest owners, tribal resource specialists, and other community leaders. Course objectives include; 1. To learn first hand from community leaders about current conditions and future prospects for rural, natural-resource - dependent communities. 2. To become familiar with the social science concepts of poverty, natural resource dependency, community well-being; social, human, economic and natural capital, land tenure, and sustainability. 3. To sharpen empathetic listening, analytical thinking, and effective communication skills. 4. To foster constructive dialogue between the university and rural communities. The course has been offered for the past three years, involving students from forestry, anthropology, public policy, public health, agricultural economics, and other disciplines. In this paper we reflect on the experience of these past three years from the perspectives of students, community participants, and academic faculty. We consider what values such a course might contribute to graduate education and to university – community relations, what pitfalls might be encountered, and how the challenge of funding such a course might be addressed. A panel of student and community participants will share their perspectives on this mode of graduate education

Criterion validity of the Saltin-Grimby Physical Activity Level Scale in adolescents. The Fit Futures Study

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Musikk og religion

Music plays an important role in many religions and in a variety of religious contexts. Music and Religion: Texts on Music in Religion and Religion in Music takes a look at the intersections between music and religion. We experience religion in music, and in religion we encounter musical expression. Although music and religion are unquestionably mutually pervasive, we can also come across gaps between them: Is it possible to move beyond a musical experience toward a religious one without having to hop over this gap? And is there any direct route from religion into music as an acoustic phenomenon? Without a religious interpretation of the music remaining? There is a wealth of research about music and religion, but little on how they meet. That is what this anthology seeks to remedy. Music and Religion will be relevant for anyone with an interest in encounters between these two phenomena. It will be especially relevant for students in performing, composing and scientific music education, as well as theology and religious studies. The anthology has been edited by Henrik Holm (associate professor in education at Oslo Metropolitan University and professor in philosophy at Rudolf Steiner University College) and Øivind Varkøy (professor in music education and music sciences at the Norwegian Academy of Music and professor II in music at Oslo Metropolitan University)

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Collaborative conservation in local landscapes

Keynote presentation at Bridging the gap: collaborative conservation from the ground up conference, September 8-11, 2009, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, sponsored by the Center for Collaborative Conservation, https://collaborativeconservation.org/. This conference brought together people with experience working collaboratively to achieve both conservation and livelihood goals in tribal nations, rangelands, forests, watersheds, agricultural lands, and urban areas. Christoffersen is the executive director for Wallowa Resources. He has a bachelor's in Economics from Williams, and a Masters in Forestry from Oxford University. His work experience includes six years in eastern and southern Africa on forestry and wildlife management issues, with an emphasis on community-based natural resource management. Previously, Christoffersen has served as executive director for the U.S. Office of Africa Resources Trust and regional program coordinator for the IUCN Regional Office in Southern Africa. Other work includes policy work with the European Commission on matters related to CITES and natural resource management, and short-term field work in Australia (livestock), U.K. (forestry), Norway (forestry and fishing), and Israel (agriculture). Since working in Oregon, Christoffersen has served on the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry and he chaired the Governor of Oregon's Eastside Forest Advisory Panel from 2003 to 2005.Collaborative conservation at the local level continues to struggle, but it holds more promise than other strategies in securing relevant social, economic and ecological benefits. To deliver on this promise, community-based conservation needs investment in local leadership and organizations, new relationships at the regional and national level, and policies that catalyze small-scale, decentralized action on a broad scale towards sustainability. Such investments and support will only be possible if more people understand the nature and potential of this strategy. The ultimate goal is true grass-roots action by individuals and communities to secure the health of their own communities and lands, and, in aggregate, significant national benefits for a generation

Cost-effective hazardous fuels reduction and biomass utilization : a case study from Wallowa County, Oregon

2 pagesUtilizing woody biomass from hazardous fuels reduction projects may make forest restoration more cost effective while creating local economic benefits. However, there is a lack of evidence about how projects can be designed for these outcomes. Wallowa Resources and the Wallowa- Whitman National Forest (WWNF) partnered to test if mechanical treatment with biomass utilization was cost effective in comparison to hand thinning, piling, and burning using a hazardous fuels reduction project called Reservoir Biomass. We studied the benefits and challenges of this approach.This briefing paper was made possible with funding from the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities and USDA Rural Development

Forest restoration and biomass utilization for multiple benefits : a case study from Wallowa County, Oregon

12 pagesUpdated edition. In 2011, the Ecosystem Workforce Program produced a first version of this working paper, which analyzed the Reservoir Biomass project’s costs and outcomes when it was in progress. Since that time, the project has been completed. To document its final outcomes, we have released this updated edition of Working Paper #29. This second version includes updated information about acres treated, materials removed, and costs per acre.Forest restoration and biomass utilization on public lands can create improved stand conditions and opportunities for local economic benefit. In Wallowa County, local nonprofit organization Wallowa Resources and the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest have partnered to restore forest health and watershed conditions. With funding from the USDA Forest Service through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the US Endowment, they tested whether mechanical treatment with biomass removal and utilization is costeffective in achieving desired stand improvement and local benefit, in comparison to hand thinning, piling, and burning. They piloted this approach in 2009–11 on a hazardous fuels reduction project called the Reservoir Biomass project.This project is made possible through financial support from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities and USDA Rural Development