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Forestry extension’s role in stewardship planning for woodland owners.

Mike Cloughesy

Oregon State University, College of Forestry, USA

Abstract

Forestry Extension has a major role in helping woodland owners develop stewardship plans for their properties in Oregon. Involvement has ranged from helping develop uniform guidelines for stewardship plans written under a number of programs, to teaching landowners to write their own stewardship plans, to training certifiers with the Oregon Tree Farm System on developing stewardship plans for landowners.

The Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Forestry Program and the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) Service Forestry Program jointly developed Stewardship Planning Guidelines that are applicable to four landowner programs.

These guidelines were used in teaching OSU Extension's Resource Management Planning (RMP) Short Course. This 14-module course is designed to help experienced landowners develop a Forest Stewardship Plan for their woodlands using a template developed from the guidelines as a base. Plans developed in this course can be certified by ODF Service Foresters as official Stewardship Plans and qualify the landowner for participation in the federal Stewardship Incentives Program.

OSU Extension Forestry is also responsible for training Oregon Tree Farm System (OTFS) certifiers on a variety of topics including using the uniform Stewardship Planning Guidelines with landowners to write a management plan that meets the requirements for OTFS certification. Trained OTFS certifiers include a range of consulting, industrial, service, extension, public, and retired foresters.

Thus Extension Forestry in Oregon is actively involved in woodland owner stewardship planning by helping to develop uniform guidelines, by training landowners to write their own management plans, and by training certifiers for the OTFS to assist landowners in their plan writing. We believe that woodland owners with stewardship plans are able to make better-informed decisions regarding their forestlands.

Introduction

Woodland owners are an important part of the forestry community in Oregon. This group of forest owners, alternatively labeled Non-Industrial Private Forest Landowners, Family Forest Landowners, or Woodland Owners, collectively own about 16 percent of the commercial forestland in Oregon. Due to the large amount of federal forestland in Oregon, the thrust of federal land management toward preservation rather than timber harvest, and the geographic juxtaposition of family forestlands between the population centers and the industrial forests, the management of these family forestlands is more important than their acreage alone might indicate.

Oregon woodland owners are fortunate to have two major sources of publicly provided technical and educational assistance. The Oregon Department of Forestry’s Service Forestry Program provides one-on-one technical assistance to woodland owners and is the gateway to financial assistance available from state and federal programs. Service Forestry consists of 20 field-based Service Foresters and 11 headquarters-based support specialists. Oregon State University’s Extension Forestry Program provides informal education programs to woodland owners using workshops, short courses, field tours, publications, newsletters and other means. OSU Extension Forestry consists of 16 county-based Agents and 12 campus-based subject matter specialists. Together these two programs of Service Forestry and Extension Forestry make up a strong support systems for family forest landowners.

A vibrant community of private Consulting Foresters also provides technical and educational assistance to Oregon’s woodland owners. Assistance from consulting foresters is often related to commercial activities such as timber harvest whereby the woodland owner receives income and can justify the consulting fee.

Forest management planning has long been part of the decision-making process for industrial and federal forestlands but has been done to a lesser degree on family forestlands. Increasing complexity of regulations and incentive programs relating to forest management and the belief that lands under a management plan are likely to be more actively managed than those not under a management plan have led to an increased emphasis on management planning by Extension Foresters and Service Foresters.

The Stewardship Incentives Program (SIP) is a major source of federal financial assistance to woodland owners. SIP is administered by state Service Foresters and includes a 50% cost share for activities such as tree planting, thinning, pruning, fertilization, soil and water protection, fish and wildlife habitat improvement, and recreation. Before management activities can receive financial assistance, they must first be described in a Stewardship Plan that must be approved by the local Service Forester. Writing of Stewardship Plans by consulting foresters is eligible for cost sharing at a 75% rate under SIP. The evolution and acceptance of the Stewardship Incentives Program has led to increasing use of forest management planning by woodland owners and the acceptance of the name Stewardship Plans for these forest management plans.

Extension Forestry has a major role in helping woodland owners develop stewardship plans for their properties in Oregon. Involvement has ranged from helping develop uniform guidelines for stewardship plans written under a number of programs, to teaching landowners to write their own stewardship plans, to training certifiers with the Oregon Tree Farm System on developing stewardship plans for landowners.

Stewardship Planning Guidelines

A team representing the Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Forestry Program and the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) Service Forestry Program jointly developed Oregon Forest Stewardship Planning Guidelines that are applicable to four landowner programs.

A. Forest Practices Stewardship Plan & Agreement (FPSP&A) – The basic criteria for a Forest Practices Stewardship Plan are set in legislation and administrative rules. The Forest Practices Stewardship Plan is required for a landowner to receive a Stewardship Agreement. The agreement focuses on Forest Practices Rules requirements and allows the landowner to implement the Forest Practices Rules as a voluntary alternative to traditional mechanisms of operation planning and review, inspection, and enforcement. The agreements are only issued to landowners who demonstrate compliance with the Forest Practices Rules through their Stewardship Plans and their past management. Landowners with agreements can operate with less direct control by Forest Practices Foresters.

B. Forestry Assistance Stewardship Plan (FASP) – A certified stewardship plan is required for a landowner to qualify for participation in the Stewardship Incentives Program (SIP). This program is designed to provide federal financial incentives to assist family forest landowners in defining and meeting their management objectives while protecting other natural resources on their properties. The three main objectives of the SIP program are to help landowners meet integrated resource objectives as indicated by development of a stewardship plan, to coordinate agencies and groups working with landowners and to fulfill the goals of the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds by enhancing riparian areas and water quality.

C. Resource Management Planning Stewardship Plan (RMPSP) – The Resource Management Planning (RMP) program is an OSU Extension Forestry training program designed for landowners who are aware of basic forest resource concepts and wish to develop a resource management (stewardship) plan. The program guides landowners through the preparation of a stewardship plan for their forest property including developing objectives, constraints, a resource inventory, and an action plan. The landowner who completes the RMP training program and develops a stewardship plan may wish to take further training and become a Master Woodland Manager. Stewardship Plans developed through the Resource Management Planning program should qualify the landowner for participation in the Stewardship Incentives Program and the Oregon Tree Farm System.

D. Oregon Tree Farm System Stewardship Plan (OTFSSP) – The Oregon Tree Farm System’s purpose is to ensure that the excellence of the American Tree Farm System is maintained in Oregon. Volunteer professional resource managers inspect and certify tree farms, but landowners must provide a management plan. These guidelines were used to develop the Oregon Forest Stewardship Plan Template. The Oregon Tree Farm System endorses the use of the template as meeting the requirements for the management plan required to be a certified tree farm.

Although each of these four programs requires a management or stewardship plan, they did not initially use the same language or format for planning. Landowners who wished to take advantage of more than one of these programs were typically required to have multiple management plans for the same property to qualify.

The Oregon Forest Stewardship Planning Guidelines provide a common vocabulary for planning, a common framework for planning and a set of common components to be included in Stewardship Plans. Stewardship Plan components included in the guidelines and templates are shown in Table 1.

In addition to developing the guidelines, the team developed the Oregon Forest Stewardship Plan Template for use with the Oregon Forest Stewardship Planning Guidelines. The template provides a fill-in-the-blank approach to writing a Stewardship Plan. Specialized versions of the template were developed for the Resource Management Planning Short Course and the Oregon Tree Farm System. The guidelines and the templates are available as hard copy and as electronic versions.

Table 1. Plan components required by stewardship plan types.

Component / Stewardship Plan Type

FPSP&A

FASP

RMPSP

OTFSSP

A. Cover Page

X

X

X

X

B. Plan Introduction

X

X

X

X

C. Landowner Objectives

X

X

X

X

D. Map/Woodland Description

X

X

X

X

E. Forest Vegetation

 

X

X

X

F. Wildlife/Fish Habitat

X

X

X

X

G. Soils

X

X

X

 

H. Roads

X

X

X

X

I. Water Resources

X

X

X

X

J. Forest Health

 

X

X

X

K. Fire Plan

 

X

X

 

L. Agro-forestry/Range

       

M. Archeological & Cultural Resources

 

X

X

 

N. Recreation

 

X

X

X

O. Aesthetic/Scenic Resources

 

X

X

X

P. Threatened and Endangered Species

X

X

X

 

Q. Forest Practices Rules

X

X

X

X

R. Assistance

 

X

X

 

S. Tax and Business Management

 

X

X

 

T. Resource Situations, Management Recommendations & Priorities

X

X

X

X

U. Additional Sections for FPSP

X

     

V. Forest Practices Stewardship Agreement

X

     

W. Business & Tax Supplement

       

X. Signature Page

X

X

X

X

A workshop on use of the Oregon Forest Stewardship Planning Guidelines and templates was taught in January 2001 for Service Foresters, Extension Foresters, and Consulting Foresters. The team used input from attendees at this session to modify the guidelines and template before final publication and widescale distribution.

Landowners who want to participate in more than one of these programs are encouraged to develop a single stewardship plan that will meet the guidelines of all the programs they want to participate in.

Table 1 shows plan components that are required for each plan type. Landowners and plan writers are encouraged to address each component in every plan wherever practical. A plan being written for one purpose can be amended in the future, if more components are needed for the other program.

Resource Management Planning Shortcourse

The Oregon Forest Stewardship Planning guidelines were used in developing and teaching OSU Extension Forestry's Resource Management Planning (RMP) Shortcourse. This 14-module course is designed to help experienced landowners develop a Forest Stewardship Plan for their woodlands using a template developed from the guidelines as a base. Plans developed in this course can be certified by ODF Service Foresters as official Stewardship Plans and qualify the landowner for participation in the federal Stewardship Incentives Program.

OSU Extension Forestry has long included elements of management planning in its Basic Forestry Short Course that is taught nearly every year by each Forestry Extension Agent through out the state, reaching thousands of Oregon woodland owners over the years. Management planning has also been central to the training of Master Woodland Managers who develop management plans for their woodlands as they work to become volunteers for Extension Forestry.

Stewardship Planning Trainings for woodland owners have been taught in Montana and Washington State for several years as mainstays of their Extension Forestry programs. OSU Extension Foresters used these programs as models, but developed a unique program that made use of OSU’s unique network of Forestry Agents and Specialists and fit the program within the framework of other woodland owner education programs including the Basic Forestry Short Course and the Master Woodland Manager training.

The Resource Management Planning curriculum consists of 14 modules developed by teams of Extension Agents and Specialists. Each module consists of classroom lectures and field exercises to give woodland owners the background and skills necessary to develop their own Stewardship Plan using a template developed from the Stewardship Planning Guidelines. The curriculum includes PowerPoint presentations, lecture scripts, handouts, datasheets, and worksheets with instructions for classroom and field exercises. The idea is to contain enough background information and detail in the curriculum that an Extension Agent who is a generalist can use the materials to teach the entire 85-hour course. However, they are encouraged to draw on other Agents and Specialists as fellow instructors when possible.

RMP Modules include the following:

  • Introduction to Management Planning, Mapping, Soil Survey & Aerial Photos;
  • Sources of Assistance;
  • Record Keeping & Taxes;
  • Forest Ecology & Silvics;
  • Reforestation;
  • Pest Management & Fire Protection;
  • Inventory Methods;
  • Water Resources;
  • Access, Harvest Planning, Erosion Management, & Soils;
  • Fish, Wildlife & Riparian Management;
  • Silviculture & Density Management;
  • Marketing Timber Products;
  • Recreation, Cultural, Agro-Forestry & Scenic Resources; and
  • Management Decisions & Plan Finalization

The Resource Management Planning Curriculum was pilot tested in April & May 2001; was revised in June & July 2001, and the revised version is being field tested in August – October 2001. Future plans call for it being taught in all Oregon counties served by OSU Extension Forestry. The Basic Forestry Short Course is a prerequisite to RMP, which will become a prerequisite for Master Woodland Manager training.

A specialized Oregon Forest Stewardship Plan Template provides the basis for Stewardship Plans developed by participants in the RMP short course and as shown by the module list, provides the skeleton that holds the course together. As each module is taught, a piece of the Stewardship Plan is developed, so that when the course is finished, the plan is complete.

Participants in RMP courses are encouraged to have their plans certified by their local Service Forester as official Stewardship Plans under the Stewardship Incentives Programs. They are also encouraged to have their properties certified under the Oregon Tree Farm System using their newly developed plans as the basis for certification.

Oregon Tree Farm System

Certification of forestland and land management has become a major issue facing private forest landowners in the U.S. and throughout the world. The American Tree Farm System began in 1941 as a way of recognizing the outstanding forest management being done by private landowners. The standards espoused by the American Tree Farm System have been raised over time, as public expectations of private forest management has increased. The Tree Farm System has asked forest owners to have a forest management plan for at least the last 15 years.

In the past 5 years, the American Tree Farm System has evolved to be recognized as a Certification System. This involved the development of formal standards, guidelines and performance measures which tree farmers and their lands must meet in order to be certified under the system. One of the standards and guidelines involves practicing sustainable forest management. The main performance measure that must be met to satisfy this standard and guideline is to have an acceptable management plan for the property.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) of the American Pulp and Paper Association is the major Certification System endorsed by the U.S. forest products industry. Recently the SFI has recognized the American Tree Farm System as meeting its criteria of management. SFI certification encourages forest products companies to buy timber from certified sources. The American Tree Farm System is rapidly becoming the certification system of choice for woodland owners.

The Oregon Tree Farm System is the state division of the American Tree Farm System. The Oregon Tree Farm System has recognized the Oregon Stewardship Planning Guidelines and associated Oregon Tree Farm Stewardship Plan template as a recognized and preferred system for developing management plans for member’s properties.

OSU Extension Forestry is responsible for training Oregon Tree Farm System (OTFS) certifiers on a variety of topics including using the uniform Stewardship Planning Guidelines with landowners to write a management plan that meets the requirements for OTFS certification. Trained OTFS certifiers include a range of consulting, industrial, service, extension, public, and retired foresters. In addition to certifying tree farms, OTFS certifiers assist landowners in developing rudimentary Stewardship Plans and teach workshops in conjunction with OSU Forestry Extension on using the OTFS Stewardship Planning Guidelines and template.

Conclusion

Extension Forestry in Oregon is actively involved in woodland owner management planning by helping to develop uniform guidelines, by training landowners to write their own management plans, and by training certifiers for the OTFS to assist landowners in their plan writing. We believe that woodland owners with stewardship plans are able to make better-informed decisions regarding their forestlands. We believe that Extension’s role in enabling better forest management planning is leading to improved decision making and land management by Oregon’s woodland owners.

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