Issues in Forest Restoration: Case Study of a Community Stewardship Success: The White Mountain Stewardship Contract

Stewardship contracting is a recent innovation in federal land management designed to address land stewardship needs through collaboration with local communities. The White Mountain Stewardship Contract (WMSC), which is focused on restoring ponderosa pine forests in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests (ASNF) in east-central Arizona, is the nations largest stewardship contract to date, and the first to commit to the maximum duration of ten years. After two-and-a-half years of implementation, the WMSC is credited with helping to restore forest health, protect vulnerable communities, and revitalize local wood products businesses, and has received strong support from a broad spectrum of local stakeholders. These accomplishments are particularly impressive given the fact that less than a decade ago the White Mountains region was mired in a shut down of forest activities, characterized by social division over forest management issues, local mill closures, and an inability to implement most forest management efforts. This case study examines how community members, business owners, and agency employees were able to transition from community gridlock to broad-based support for the most ambitious forest stewardship plan in the National Forest System

Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes: Working Together to Restore Ecological and Community Health.

This poster shows the four directions of response by the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes to the problem of degraded forest ecosystems

Issues in Forest Restoration: Navigating the Motives and Mandates of Multiparty Monitoring

In this paper, we discuss what we learned about multiparty monitoring for collaborative, community-based forest restoration projects, after providing technical assistance and training to more than 50 New Mexico community groups between 2002 and 2007. These community groups were all recipients of Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) cost-share grants. The grants require multi-stakeholder monitoring and assessment of project effectiveness in terms of ecological change and effects on management skills. Because all CFRP grantees are required to monitor their projects, this program provided a unique opportunity for assessing community-based, multiparty monitoring of forest restoration projects. Given four years experience providing monitoring assistance to CFRP grantees, we explore the following questions:What are the goals of multiparty monitoring? How does it work? What are reasonable expectations of multiparty monitoring? What are the best ways to help community groups achieve these expectations? Finally, how should a community prepare for the implementation of multiparty monitoring in a community-based forestry program

Monitoring Handbook 6: Analyzing and interpreting monitoring data

The basic purpose of data analysis is to identify patterns of change in your indicator over time, and to evaluate these changes. Without doing some kind of analysis, it will be difficult for you to know the effect your project is actually having. The data analysis techniques presented in this handbook are not difficult. Most of them can be easily done using little more than a calculator and scratch paper. If necessary, there are resources listed in the handbook for additional assistance analyzing your data

Monitoring Handbook 4: Monitoring ecological effects

The goal of restoration should be to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that functions well and needs little maintenance. Monitoring is essential in order to see if projects are achieving improved ecological conditions. Part 1 of this handbook includes a description of common restoration goals and indicators. Methods for measuring each indicator are described in Part 2

Monitoring Handbook 1: What is multiparty monitoring?

There are many reasons for monitoring your project and using a multiparty approach. Multiparty monitoring will increase your understanding of the effects of restoration actions, support adaptive management, and set a course for future management. Multiparty monitoring also helps build trust among partners and establish project accountability in the broader community. This handbook will guide you through the initial steps required to develop a multiparty monitoring process

Monitoring Handbook 5: Monitoring social and economic effects of forest restoration

Forest restoration projects frequently have social, economic, and cultural goals as well as ecological goals. For instance, project partners may hope that their project will provide new jobs and reduce local unemployment, keep youth in the community, reduce the wildfire risk to human lives and property, or increase public involvement in national forest planning and decision making. Monitoring provides a way to determine whether you are headed toward or away from these goals. For example, your monitoring group might want to ask, Is our community becoming more or less sustainable? Are local management skills improving or getting worse? or Is the use of small-diameter trees increasing or decreasing? Part 1 of this handbook describes indicators that can help community-based multiparty monitoring groups measure changes in common forest restoration project goals. Part 2 describes specific methods for measuring change in each indicator

Monitoring Handbook 2: Developing a multiparty monitoring plan.

Developing a clear, concise plan for how monitoring will be done is an essential part of any monitoring program. A monitoring plan will help your group make sure that the date you gather are useful and meaningful. It ensures that information is collected at the right time and place and helps to provide transparency, an important part of the multiparty monitoring process. This handbook covers the basic steps in designing a monitoring plan

Measurements of Cabibbo Suppressed Hadronic Decay Fractions of Charmed D0 and D+ Mesons

Using data collected with the BESII detector at $e^{+}e^{-}$ storage ring Beijing Electron Positron Collider, the measurements of relative branching fractions for seven Cabibbo suppressed hadronic weak decays $D^0 \to K^- K^+$, $\pi^+ \pi^-$, $K^- K^+ \pi^+ \pi^-$ and $\pi^+ \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^-$, $D^+ \to \bar{K^0} K^+$, $K^- K^+ \pi^+$ and $\pi^- \pi^+ \pi^+$ are presented.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure