Comparative advantages of small-scale forestry among emerging forest tenures

Forestland tenure institutions and patterns are in a period of rapid change in the USA. Historically dominant forestland tenures are disappearing, and new tenures are emerging. Traditional, vertically-integrated forest products firms have shed their forestland holdings to be picked up by Timber Investment Management Organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), increasing numbers of private individuals and families are purchasing small rural tracts, and some communities are developing innovative means to gain control over nearby forestlands in order to protect these lands from commercial real estate development. Within this context of rapid ownership change, small-scale forest owners including families and communities find themselves at a competitive disadvantage, relative to large corporate owners, in wood commodity markets. This paper considers how small-scale forest tenures, relative to large corporate tenures, may be advantageous to society with regard to selected ecological, social, and economic factors. While the paper primarily draws upon illustrations from the United States Pacific Northwest, its themes are global in nature

Household livelihoods and increasing foreign investment pressure in Ethiopia’s natural forests

Foreign investment in Ethiopia’s forestry sector is currently limited, but agricultural investments that affect forests — largely through forest clearing — are commonplace. We describe the nature of forest investments and outline the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing them. Given the key role forests play in rural livelihoods, new tenure arrangements will have significant implications for communities located at the forest–farm interface. We use evidence from a case study in the Arsi Forest area of Oromia Regional State to examine historic and contemporary forest benefit distributions and investigate the potential for conflict over competing forest access claims associated with new investments

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

Groundwater dependence of riparian woodlands and the disrupting effect of anthropogenically altered streamflow

Riparian ecosystems fundamentally depend on groundwater, especially in dryland regions, yet their water requirements and sources are rarely considered in water resource management decisions. Until recently, technological limitations and data gaps have hindered assessment of groundwater influences on riparian ecosystem health at the spatial and temporal scales relevant to policy and management. Here, we analyze Sentinel-2–derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI; n = 5,335,472 observations), field-based groundwater elevation (n = 32,051 observations), and streamflow alteration data for riparian woodland communities (n = 22,153 polygons) over a 5-y period (2015 to 2020) across California. We find that riparian woodlands exhibit a stress response to deeper groundwater, as evidenced by concurrent declines in greenness represented by NDVI. Furthermore, we find greater seasonal coupling of canopy greenness to groundwater for vegetation along streams with natural flow regimes in comparison with anthropogenically altered streams, particularly in the most water-limited regions. These patterns suggest that many riparian woodlands in California are subsidized by water management practices. Riparian woodland communities rely on naturally variable groundwater and streamflow components to sustain key ecological processes, such as recruitment and succession. Altered flow regimes, which stabilize streamflow throughout the year and artificially enhance water supplies to riparian vegetation in the dry season, disrupt the seasonal cycles of abiotic drivers to which these Mediterranean forests are adapted. Consequently, our analysis suggests that many riparian ecosystems have become reliant on anthropogenically altered flow regimes, making them more vulnerable and less resilient to rapid hydrologic change, potentially leading to future riparian forest loss across increasingly stressed dryland regions

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

Vegetation responses to climatic and geologic controls on water availability in southeastern Arizona

Vegetation distribution, composition and health in arid regions are largely dependent on water availability controlled by climate, local topography and geology. Despite a general understanding of climatic and geologic drivers in plant communities, trends in plant responses to water distribution and storage across areas under different local controls are poorly understood. Here we investigate the multi-decadal interactions between spatial heterogeneity of geologic controls and temporal variation of climate, and their impacts on water availability to vegetation and plant responses (via normalized difference vegetation index, NDVI) in a monsoon-driven arid region of southeastern Arizona. We find that grasslands display low NDVI and respond directly to monsoonal rainfall. In the uplands, vegetation on west-facing slopes and in canyons share similar NDVI averages and variability, suggesting that they both use water from surface-groundwater flow paths through fractured rocks. Along the San Pedro River, streamflow, groundwater, and NDVI in deciduous riparian woodlands are strongly responsive to monsoonal rainfall, but water availability stratifies between wet (perennial), intermediate, and dry reaches, underlain by different local geologic controls that affect water table elevation. These controls interact with the driving climate to affect water availability in the shallow alluvial aquifer of the riparian zone, a primary water source to the gallery phreatophytes. A recent shift toward a strengthened monsoon in the region has led to an increase in water availability for grasslands and for dry reaches of the San Pedro, while the benefit is more muted along wetter reaches, where the riparian forest shows signs of having reached its maturity, with diminished trends in NDVI. These results have implications for the future vulnerability of dryland vegetation to climate change, which may be either dampened or intensified by local controls such as geology

Establishing ecological thresholds and targets for groundwater management

Groundwater is critical for many ecosystems, yet groundwater requirements for dependent ecosystems are rarely accounted for during water and conservation planning. Here we compile 38 years of Landsat-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to evaluate groundwater-dependent vegetation responses to changes in depth to groundwater (DTG) across California. To maximize applicability, we standardized raw NDVI and DTG values using Z scores to identify groundwater thresholds, groundwater targets and map potential drought refugia across a diversity of biomes and local conditions. Groundwater thresholds were analysed for vegetation impacts where ZNDVI dropped below −1. ZDTG thresholds and targets were then evaluated with respect to groundwater-dependent vegetation in different condition classes and rooting depths. ZNDVI scores were applied statewide to identify potential drought refugia supported by groundwater. Our approach provides a simple and robust methodology for water and conservation practitioners to support ecosystem water needs so biodiversity and sustainable water-management goals can be achieved

High resolution spatiotemporal patterns of flow at the landscape scale in montane non‐perennial streams

Intermittent and ephemeral streams in dryland environments support diverse assemblages of aquatic and terrestrial life. Understanding when and where water flows provide insights into the availability of water, its response to external controlling factors, and potential sensitivity to climate change and a host of human activities. Knowledge regarding the timing of drying/wetting cycles can also be useful to map critical habitats for species and ecosystems that rely on these temporary water sources. However, identifying the locations and monitoring the timing of streamflow and channel sediment moisture remains a challenging endeavor. In this paper, we analyzed daily conductivity from 37 sensors distributed along 10 streams across an arid mountain front in Arizona (United States) to assess spatiotemporal patterns in flow permanence, defined as the timing and extent of water in streams. Conductivity sensors provide information on surface flow and sediment moisture, supporting a stream classification based on seasonal flow dynamics. Our results provide insight into flow responses to seasonal rainfall, highlighting stream reaches very reactive to rainfall versus those demonstrating more stable streamflow. The strength of stream responses to precipitation are explored in the context of surficial geology. In summary, conductivity data can be used to map potential stream habitat for water‐dependent species in both space and time, while also providing the basis upon which sensitivity to ongoing climate change can be evaluated