A profile of federal timber purchases in the U.S. West

2 pagesThe US Forest Service primarily engages the private sector through service contracts, stewardship contracts, and timber sales. Both stewardship project and timber sales can generate commercially valuable wood products, and some businesses may rely on these federal timber sources. However, little is known about the timber-purchasing businesses currently active on federal lands. To gain a better understanding of these businesses, we investigated their characteristics, business needs, challenges, and reliance on federal timber sales.This research was supported by funding from the USDA Agricultural and Food Research Initiative, grant #2011-67023-30111

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. There are at least three ecosystems that projects of the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program are working to restore..

Social and political dimensions of forest health

The concept of forest health has recently emerged as a focal concept for federal forest policy. At the same time, social and political conflicts over the characteristics of a healthy forest, and over the causes of poor forest health, underscore the lack of a shared understanding of what the term means. Here, social and political science approaches were used to investigate the social and political dimensions of the forest health concept. Using data from a survey of 482 residents of the Pacific Northwest, it was found that individuals' economic or environmental orientations, self-rated on a seven point scale, related strongly to their opinions regarding appropriate forest health management treatments as well as their perceived threats to forest health. While strong disagreements emerged over appropriate treatments for a forest described as "healthy," there was a general agreement that a forest described as "overstocked" should not be left to take its own course, but should be selectively thinned to improve its health. A review of all forest health-related legislation introduced into Congress between 1989 and the passage of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (H.R. 1904) on November 21, 2003 revealed five distinct, but not mutually exclusive, policy packages regarding forest health. The most common policy package during this period emphasized the protection of property from fire damage, although this approach was relatively uncommon in the early 1990's when other concerns dominated the forest health debate. Together these findings illustrate the range of forest health understandings in the social and political spheres and point to areas where general agreement exists, suggesting possibilities for future accord on forest health management

A profile of community-based organizations in the U.S. West

2 pagesCommunity-based organizations (CBOs) are non-profit organizations based in rural communities that work on both local economic development and natural resource stewardship. CBOs were established in many places across the U.S. West to help struggling rural communities build sustainable natural resource-based economies. They often serve communities that were greatly affected by changes to public land policy and changes in the timber industry or other natural resource industries since the late 1980s. These communities have typically experienced social conflict, unemployment, and other challenges related to environmental management. In 2016 we conducted a survey of CBOs across the West to better understand their organizational characteristics and activities.This research was supported by funding from the USDA Agricultural and Food Research Initiative, grant #2011-67023- 30111

Amenity landownership, land use change and the re-creation of “working landscapes”

In recent years the “working landscape” concept has risen to prominence in popular, academic, and policy discourse surrounding conservation of both natural and cultural values in inhabited landscapes. Despite its implied reconciliation of commodity production and environmental protection, this concept remains contested terrain, masking tensions over land use practices and understandings of human-nature relations. Here we draw on a case study of land ownership and land use change in remote, rural Wallowa County, Oregon to explore how working landscapes are envisioned and enacted by various actors. The arrival of landowning amenity migrants, many of whom actively endorsed a working landscape vision, resulted in subtle but significant transformations in land use practices and altered opportunities for local producers. The working landscape ideal, while replete with tensions and contradictions, nevertheless functioned as an important alternative vision to the rural gentrification characteristic of other scenic Western environs.Keywords: rural gentrification, working landscape, discourse, land use, amenity migratio

'The live dynamic whole of feeling and behavior': capital punishment and the politics of emotion, 1945–1957

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Promoting fire-adapted communities : the importance of social diversity in the wildland urban interface

2 pagesFire-adapted communities are those that can effectively reduce risk to private property through community actions while allowing wildfire to play a regenerative role in the local ecosystem. However, little is known about what fire-adapted communities look like or how different kinds of communities can achieve this goal. This research advances knowledge about community fire adaptation while also recognizing that social and biophysical context varies among communities.This research was supported by funding from the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture, Grant #2011-67023-30695

Winter Lakes High School (OR)

With permission from the school principal, students in grades 7–12 at Winter Lakes High School were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey in March 2019. Participation was voluntary. Winter Lakes High School had 300 students during 2018–2019, 68 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 23%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures

Piscataquis & N. Somerset Counties (ME)

With permission from school principals, students at 5 schools in Piscataquis and N. Somerset Counties in Maine were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey between February and May, 2019. Participation was voluntary. The schools had a combined 666 students enrolled during 2018–2019, 578 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 87%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures

Piscataquis Community High School (ME)

With permission from the school principal, students in grades 9–12 at Piscataquis Community High School were given a link to an anonymous, electronic survey in February 2019. Participation was voluntary. Piscataquis Community High School had 120 students during 2018–2019, 120 of which took the survey for a participation rate of 100%. Every question was optional, so the number of responses varies by question. Fact sheets for all schools and each county are available online at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/rural_youth_futures