L. Teeter

The use of remote sensing and GIS in watershed level analyses of non-point source pollution problems

Abstract Basin characteristics such as land use/land cover, slope, and soil attributes affect water quality by regulating sediment and chemical concentration. Among these characteristics, land use/land cover can be manipulated to gain improvements in water quality. These land use/land cover types can serve as nutrient detention media or as nutrient transformers as dissolved or suspended nutrients move towards the stream. This study examines a methodology to determine nitrate pollution ‘contributing zones’ within a given basin based on basin characteristics. In this process, land use/land cover types were classified and basins and ‘contributing zones’ were delineated using geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) analysis tools. A ‘land use/land cover-nutrient-linkage-model’ was developed which suggests that forests act as a sink, and as the proportion of forest inside a contributing zone increases (or agricultural land decreases), nitrate levels downstream will decrease. In the model, the residential/urban/built-up areas have been identified as strong contributors of nitrate. Other contributors were orchards; and row crops and other agricultural activities.

Forest policy for private forestry: global and regional challenges

There is a great concern about the sustainability of forestry and the contribution of private forestry towards this aim. It is therefore important to develop effective policies to support or shape private forestry. This book includes a selection of revised papers from a conference held in Atlanta in March 2001. The main subjects covered include: the emergence of a new paradigm for public involvement in private forestry; the challenges of sustainability; certification programmes; country experiences from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia.

Forest certification in the Heart of Dixie: a survey of Alabama landowners.

Deanna Newsom,1 Benjamin Cashore,2 Graeme Auld3 and James E. Granskog4 1TREES Program, Rainforest Alliance, Richmond, VT 05477, USA; 2Global Institute for Sustainable Forest Management, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, CT 06511-2189, USA; 3University of British Columbia, Department of Forest Resources Management, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4; 4USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, New Orleans, LA 70113, USA

Perspectives on forest certification: a survey examining differences among the US forest sectors' views of their forest certification alternatives.

In the last 5 years the world’s forest policy climate has been jolted by a startling new development: the emergence of an array of private nongovernmental forest certification programmes designed to recognize companies that practice sustainable forest management (SFM). Social and biological scientists have been quick to address this new development, from describing the different types of programmes in the US and globally (Hansen and Juslin, 1999; Rickenbach et al., 2000), to exploring the politics behind them (Elliott, 1999; Cashore, 2002), their intersection between public and private policy (Meidinger, 1997, 1998), and consumer support for such programmes and the products they promote (Forsyth, 1997; Ozanne and Smith, 1998; Forsyth et al., 1999). Despite this increased attention, we are only just beginning to understand how certification programmes gain, or do not gain, support from an array of interests, including environmental, business, governmental and professional organizations, and the effects of this support on the long-term viability of certification programmes. Why are companies considering or pursuing certification? What are the perceived advantages and disadvantages of certification? Do companies prefer more flexible industry initiated programmes such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), or more prescriptive environmental-group-supported programmes represented by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)? What are the conditions under which a company predisposed to one programme would consider another? This chapter is an effort to begin filling this gap by addressing two aspects of forest certification that have received surprisingly scant scholarly attention. First, it examines the attitudes of the key forest companies that will be required to implement forest certification’s management rules. Second, it addresses the views of the broader (manufacturing) forest sector whose demands (or lack of demand) for certified wood products and their willingness to act as a link in product-tracking processes (chain of custody) will most certainly play a key role in the future direction of forest certification. Exploring these questions permits us to perform two key tasks: (i) elucidate better exactly what the forest sector is thinking; and (ii) provide

New trends in forest policy and management: an emerging postmodern approach?

Forest policy and management throughout most of the 20th century was firmly rooted in patterns established during the progressive era in the USA, which can be characterized as seeking to provide the greatest good for the greatest number through science and governmental allocation of resources. Many of the key elements of this approach to conservation were challenged during the last two decades of the 20th century, and a number of new approaches have emerged. These new approaches, such as ecosystem management and sustainability, challenge many established tenets of natural resource policy and management, and some authors have characterized these changes as a switch from modern to postmodern natural resource management. This paper uses examples from the USA and Costa Rica to evaluate the claim that a new postmodern conservation has emerged in the practice of natural resource management and policy.

Case studies examining the economic impacts of new forest practices regulations on NIPF landowners.

Regulation of private forestland has been a growing issue in the USA, and concern has increased over the economic impacts of these regulations on rural communities and landowners. This is particularly true in the state of Washington, which has recently strengthened its forest practices laws in response to the listing of salmon under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Washington’s new rules, known as the ‘Forests and Fish’ rules, include significant new restrictions on timber harvest in riparian areas. These new rules appear to be the most restrictive in the nation. There is concern that they will be an economic burden to private landowners, especially small, non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners. There is also concern over the potential disparity of impacts between different landowners in the state. Other states considering similar rule changes may benefit from Washington’s experience. The purpose of this study is to use a series of case studies to examine the economic impacts of Washington’s new forest practices regulations on small, NIPF landowners. A Small Business Economic Impact Statement (SBEIS) has already been completed to assess the overall economic impacts of the rules on small landowners and to compare these impacts with those of large, industrial landowners (Perez-Garcia et al., 2001). A county level analysis of impacts has also been done (Lippke et al., 2000), but these studies do not consider site-specific differences. By using a case study approach, this study focuses on the potential range and disparity of impacts between individual landowners with more specificity on cost and management treatments. In addition, this study seeks to reveal best management strategies for small landowners in light of the new rules, and it also assesses the effectiveness of impact mitigation programmes.

Optimal forest harvest decisions: A stochastic dynamic programming approach

Abstract A method is presented for determining optimal economic strategies for density management in loblolly pine stands in the southern United States. A stochastic dynamic programming model employs a price state transition matrix constructed using time-series data for National Forest pine stumpage in the South. The model also incorporates WTHIN, a pine growth and yield simulator widely used in the South to support economic analyses of stand management alternatives. Results indicate that optimal net present values associated with management strategies determined for the stochastic model (relative to a deterministic equivalent) are higher due to differences in the thinning and final harvest decisions recommended by the two models.

Today and tomorrow of private forestry in Central and Eastern Europe.

In the 1990s, countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) initiated dramatic reforms in an effort to democratize their political systems and base their economies on free market principles. For the forest sector, these changes meant the privatization of wood-processing industries and the return of private forests that had been nationalized to their former owners following World War II. CEE countries also actively participated in regional and global forest policy processes that recognized sustainable forest management (SFM) principles as the foundation for the management of their forest resources. At the regional level, Ministerial Conferences on the Protection of Forests in Europe, also called the Pan-European Forestry Process, have been essential in the development and implementation of commonly agreed SFM criteria and indicators. This drive to more sustainable and environmentally friendly forest management is further strengthened by the arrival of marketbased initiatives such as forest certification. Rapid changes have made existing forest legislation obsolete and necessitated its profound revision. In recent years, new or revised forest laws have been passed in most CEE countries. While the previous laws and policies focused primarily on securing an adequate timber supply, today’s policies are driven by environmental concerns. A shift towards environmentally oriented forest management and stringent regulations represent a serious challenge to thousands of new, small-scale forest owners. Many of these owners have very limited forestry expertise and investment capital. Their limited resources and sharp drops in public assistance raise concerns about the longterm sustainability of private forest management. These concerns slow down the restitution process and result in proposals for more stringent controls on private forests. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the restitution process and forest policies that are applicable to private forests in order to assess their current situation and prospects for the future. The impact of progressive globalization of timber markets and wood-processing industries and the internationalization of environmental policies is evaluated. Since most countries in the region have applied for European Union (EU) membership, the possible implications of accession are discussed as well. For the purposes of this study, CEE is defined as a 15-state block composed of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Yugoslavia. These states form a contiguous region stretching from the EU in the west to the former Soviet Union in the east. Although they formed part of the former Soviet Union, the Baltic states are included in the study because they have carried out democratic reforms and are currently returning nationalized forests to their former owners. Other countries of

Using Extant Data to Determine Management Direction in Family Forests

This study investigated the differences between multiple-objective-, timber-, and non-timber-motivated family forest landowner groups in the southeastern states of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Our focus was primarily to develop a classification scheme using easily available location-specific secondary data associated with family forest owners such that we may be able to identify the likely management direction for particular parcels of forestland in the future. Using nonparametric discriminatory analysis procedures we found that the biophysical, socioeconomic, and demographic factors best differentiated the landowner groups. With all the variables used to develop the classification scheme in this study known, a priori—that is, before the landowner on a Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot location is contacted for the National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS)—it may be possible to predict the motivational membership type of a future landowner with known woodlot (FIA) and demographic (Census) attributes.

High tonnage harvesting and skidding for loblolly pine energy plantations

Abstract The southeastern United States has a promising source for renewable energy in the form of woody biomass. To meet the energy needs, energy plantations will likely be utilized. These plantations will contain a high density of small-stem pine trees. Since the stems are relatively small when compared with traditional product removal, the harvesting costs will increase. The purpose of this research was to evaluate specialized harvesting and skidding equipment that would harvest these small stems cost efficiently. The feller-buncher utilized was a Tigercat 845D with a specialized biomass shear head. The skidder was a Tigercat 630D equipped with an oversized grapple. This equipment was evaluated in a 4-hectare stand with characteristics of a southern pine energy plantation. During the study, the feller-buncher achieved an average production rate of 47 green tonnes/productive machine hour (gt/PMH) and the skidder had an average production rate of 112 gt/PMH. A before-tax cash-flow model was used to deter...