Multiple Party Monitoring in New Mexico

Many community forestry advocates have heard of the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP), a pilot Forest Service program that funnels $5 million per year to community groups in New Mexico. Funds available under CFRP go to diverse, multi-partner projects that promote forest restoration and improve the use of small diameter trees removed from restoration sites. Several advocates are clamoring to have this law expanded to provide similar funds for community forestry in other states

Policy Challenges for Collaborative Forestry: A Summary of Previous Findings and Suggestions

After several years of effort, many collaborative and community-based forestry groups that formed in the 1990s are still struggling to implement their land management projects. The combined impact of several factors, including legal challenges, funding problems, agency history, bureaucratic processes, and poor internal communication, seems to conspire against collaborative solutions for today's land management challenges. Several efforts have been made in recent years to identify barriers to collaboration and to identify various solutions to these complicated public resource issues. As part of this chain of examinations, the Ecological Restoration Institute, in cooperation with the Pinchot Institute, the Society of American Foresters, and American Forests, has organized a 2-day workshop to clarify policy and procedural factors that hinder collaborative forestry efforts and suggest policy changes to address those factors. This document, which summarizes the findings and suggestions from previous workshops and policy analyses, has been prepared for participants in the September 2003 workshop. In order to facilitate discussion, this document is divided into three sections. The first section reviews legal and regulatory problems faced by collaborative forestry groups. The second lists various funding challenges faced by agency partners and collaborators. The third section summarizes barriers to collaboration that have been attributed to Forest Service culture and practices. Each problem statement is followed by an explanatory discussion from the literature, and, where available, suggestions for policy changes that could alleviate the problem

Exploring barriers to collaborative forestry: Report from a workshop held at Hart Prairie, Flagstaff, Arizona, September 17-19, 2003.

The goal of the Barriers to Collaborative Forestry workshop was to examine national policies and other factors that may be hampering project implementation and to suggest changes to help collaborative forestry groups move forward. Overall, workshop participants agreed that frustration and burnout in collaborative forestry is a result of several important and interrelated factors. First, the anticipation of unrealistic outcomes for collaborative efforts has created expectations that have not been fulfilled. Second, inconsistent commitment, participation, and support of collaboratives within the federal land management agencies have made it difficult for collaborative efforts to succeed. Finally, collaborative group participants may lack the capacity or experience to deliver outcomes

Issues in Forest Restoration: What to Expect from Collaboration in Natural Resource Management: A Research Synthesis for Practitioners

Collaborative approaches to natural resource management have become increasingly popular since the 1980s in the United States, to the point where the federal government now mandates them for some federal activities and federally funded projects. For example, through the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and appropriations for the National Fire Plan, Congress has directed that federal land management agencies should make the states and local governments full partners in collaborative resource management, and work closely with citizens and governments at all levels. (Public Law 108-148) In August 2004, President Bush released an Executive Order calling for "cooperative conservation, with an emphasis on appropriate inclusion of local participation in federal decisionmaking, [including] collaborative activity among federal, state, local, and tribal governments, private for-profit and nonprofit institutions, other nongovernmental entities and individuals." (Bush 2004) ... In order to address the need for more clarity about the expected outcomes and characteristics of effective collaborative resource management, we reviewed the literature on collaboration, including theoretical, prescriptive, and empirical research literature. In the first part of this paper, we identify what collaboration is––and what it is not. We then turn to comparative empirical research on collaborative resource management to identify outcomes that are commonly reported (and, therefore, can reasonably be expected from) collaboration, and, lastly, to identify best practices and guidelines for effective collaborative resource management

Working Paper 11: Collaboration as a Tool in Forest Restoration

Many policy makers, stakeholders and land management agencies have embraced collaborative approaches as a means of guiding forest management on public lands. A growing number of federal policies, such as the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 and the Facilitation of Cooperative Conservation Executive Order 13352 of August 26, 2004, call for cooperative conservation by encouraging federal agencies to work collaboratively with multiple stakeholders on natural resource management issues. These directives have created both optimism and uncertainty. This publication presents an overview of collaborative forest restoration, including its benefits and challenges

Issues in Forest Restoration: Forest Service Contracting: A Basic Guide for Restoration Practitioners

During the past ten years, the array of administrative tools available to the Forest Service for restoration has changed and been enhanced. This guide provides an overview of the contracts, agreements, and permits available to pursue restoration work on national forests, and provides contractors with information on how to find and bid on restoration contracts

Social science to improve fuels management: A synthesis of research on collaboration

This document is part of the Fuels Planning: Science Synthesis and Integration Project, a pilot project initiated by the USDA Forest Service to respond to the need for tools and information useful for planning site-specific fuel (vegetation) treatment projects. The information addresses fuel and forest conditions of the dry inland forests of the Western United States: those dominated by ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, dry grand fir/white fir, and dry lodgepole pine potential vegetation types. Information was developed primarily for application at the stand level and is intended to be useful within this forest type regardless of ownership. Portions of the information also will be directly applicable to the pinyon pine/juniper potential vegetation types. Many of the concepts and tools developed by the project may be useful for planning fuel projects in other forest types. In particular, many of the social science findings would have direct applicability to fuel planning activities for forests throughout the United States

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