PBS Documentary Explores Origins/Rationale of Important Endowment Partner

This weekend, November 18 and 19, PBS will premiere the Ken Burns documentary, “The Dust Bowl.”  The film brings alive the devastating drought that followed “the Great Plow-Up,” the result of a frenzied boom in wheat production across America’s Heartland.  

The program is of particular interest to the Endowment since it explores the origin and rationale for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).   The alignment of the Endowment’s goals with the work that the NRCS does has led to numerous partnerships on issues including water conservation, conservation easements, and stemming African American land loss through improved sustainable forestry practices. 

NRCS Roots in the Dust Bowl

NRCS was founded in the 1930s as the USDA Soil Conservation Service in response to the Dust Bowl environmental tragedy.  Today, the agency is leading the government’s efforts to support private farmers, ranchers and landowners to conserve our natural resources by applying conservation practices on millions of acres of agricultural and forest lands. The goal is sound conservation solutions that keep soils healthy, water and air clean, wildlife abundant and food plentiful

We expect in “The Dust Bowl” Ken Burns will remind us about how critical  the very few inches of top soil are to sustaining life and how vulnerable they are to human abuse and natural calamity.  As the globe seems to experience increased weather extremes, we are reminded of the importance of the mission of NRCS to help us ALL be good stewards of the land.

Chief Dave White Leaves a Legacy
We are also reminded of the importance of good leadership in government and salute the visionary work of Dave White, Chief of NRCS, who this week announced his retirement.   Under Chief White’s leadership, the agency initiated more than a dozen landscape-scale initiatives for wildlife and ecosystem conservation.  His work marks another chapter in a legacy that has seen significant advances in conservation all while the nation’s population has continued to grow.

We tip our hat to Ken Burns for documenting an important part of our nation’s history and to public-sector stewards like Dave White for their service.

Happy Birthday...To Us!

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) started as part of a vision by members of the respective trade delegations from Canada and the United States as a side outcome of the Softwood Lumber Agreement 2006 (SLA) between the two countries.

Just over a week ago we had the privilege of providing a report to the Softwood Lumber Committee -- another creation of the SLA -- that includes representatives from both governments who meet at least annually to review progress under the agreement.  While four organizations were granted one-time funds as part of the SLA, the Endowment was one of only two newly created institutions that resulted directly from the agreement.

Six Years, Seven Initiatives...
The Endowment, comprised of a thirteen-person independent Board of Directors and its lean staff of five with headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina, hit the ground with speed and enthusiasm for the challenge.  Our goal:  to advance healthy working forests across the U.S. and to aid rural communities that depend upon the health, vitality, and productivity of those forests.  The first six years, marked less by our official charter (September 26) and more by assembling of the Board and retention of our first staff member (November 1), has flown by.

While we are still a young organization and clearly still learning, we are proud of the foundations that have been established in those first six years.  Among them:

• A strong, creative, resilient Board;
• A nimble and productive staff;
• A roof of our own;
• Emerging and maturing work across seven relevant initiatives;
• Asset creation
• Growing Markets for traditional products;
• Exploring and growing markets for non-traditional products;
• Forest retention;
• Forest health;
• Forest investment zones;
• Woody biomass; and,
• A growing list of outstanding collaborative partners.

The Challenge Ahead
One of the things that the Endowment's Board and staff does at each gathering is to review our mission as rooted in the SLA 2006 and affirm an admonition set-forth in one of the side-letters to that agreement -- that all we do shall "ultimately benefit the North American forest industry."

Among our values are to be transparent, focused, and to not fall prey to trying to be all things to all people by instead attempting to do a few things well and "do what others can't or won't."

We know we have a long way to go, but we are committed to doing all within our power to make sure that those who had the spark of an idea of what the Endowment could be will be able to say, "Well done!"

Carlton N. Owen

Fire Season:  The Real Costs of Fires (Part 3)

The 2012 wildfire season in the U.S. is largely a fading memory.  That is unless you live or work in one of the forests that fell victim to one of the worst fire seasons in years.  In parts 1 and 2 of this series we looked at those men and women who help protect our forests and how a changing climate is driving losses at an ever escalating pace. 

What Does a Forest Fire Cost?
The USDA Forest Service, the nation's lead on forest fires, spends approximately $2 billion (that's BILLION) annually on forest fire suppression. Total costs are approaching one-half of the agency's entire budget.  But, that's just part of the story.

In a 2010 report entitled "The True Cost of Wildfire in the Western U.S.," the writers reference research that suggests that the real cost of a fire is two-to-thirty times the cost of suppression.  So, using this year as an example, the true cost of wildfire losses in the U.S. was somewhere between $4 and $60 billion!

What's Included in Those Costs?
In addition to suppression to account for the total costs of a forest fire one must take into account the direct loss of forest value, the costs of rehabilitation (planting is just a tiny part), structural property losses and things like loss of wilderness values, impacts to water, and increases in health care costs such as treatment of asthma.  Before you jump to the conclusion that such costs are just imaginary, one recent fire near Denver, Colorado, carried with it $150 million in direct costs to cleanup damage to the city's water supply.  Clean water is in the words of the credit card commerical, "priceless."

Using these figures as guides we can see that the modest costs of "fireproofing our forests" with forest restoration/thinning efforts and use of controlled burns yields a very high return.  That said, it is often difficult to get convince society to invest money to avoid a problem.  Yet, once that problem has occurred, we have no choice and we just find a way to pay for the fix. 

As the old Fram oil filter commercial said, "You can pay me now or pay me later."  The costs to America's forests and all associated with them are just too precious to wait for the inevitable.

Carlton N. Owen

Fire Season: All Fires Are Not Created Equally – Part 2

“Fire season worst in decades.”  “Disastrous (Bastrop) wildfire, worst in Texas history.”  These headlines, similar to ones that might have appeared in the 1870s to 1920s, are actually from 2011-2012.  What’s going on?

Taking a look at some of the largest single fires in U.S. history – for instance in years when a total of more than 20 million acres burned -- some individual fires charred between 3 and 4 million acres.  We know that many or those larger fires were in areas that had been heavily cut-over.  That’s still a lot of acres.  But, clearly losing an acre of cut-over land isn’t the same as an acre of old growth forest – whether one considers ecological or economic loss.

If you are having difficulty imaging 20 million acres, look at a U.S. map.  The States of South Carolina and Maine each have about 20 million acres of land.

Acres Lost are Growing, Again
The longest running campaign in Ad Council history, Smokey Bear and his well-known warning, "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires," was introduced in 1944.  And it worked!  The Smokey website notes that “the Forest Fire Prevention campaign helped reduce the number of acres lost annually from 22 million to 8.4 million (in 2000).” The sad part in that true statement is that 8.4 million acres is well above the average of preceding decades.  

The point we are straining to make is that the total acres burned – whether the fires are in shrub habitats or forests – after several decades of “relatively” small losses, are getting bigger every decade.  For instance, the average wild-land acreage lost to wildfires in the 1980s was just over 2.5 million acres.  That grew by another million acres in the 1990s.  But, astonishingly, in an era of increased detection and firefighting tools, the first decade of the 2000s saw that number nearly double to more than 6 million acres -- with some years approaching 10 million!  

Right Message for the Right Time
Responding to the massive outbreak of wildfires in 2000, the Smokey campaign changed its focus to wildfires and the slogan to "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires."   Even Smokey had to acknowledge that in fire-based ecosystems like much of America’s western and southern forests, all fires aren’t created equally. 

Forestry and Its Seasons: Fire Season Part 1

We have all kinds of seasons.  As fall approaches, it’s football season.  There’s allergy season, the holiday season, and the Four Seasons – both those aligned with the calendar and of Frankie Valli fame.  Forestry has its seasons as well.  There’s the planting season, the growing season, and in the northern U.S. the infamous “mud” season.  Then there’s the one that gets the most media attention and that is all-too-sadly growing -- fire season.

From pine forests of the coastal southeast to the dry forests of the inland mountain west and the desert southwest, fires just like wind throw, floods, and bugs, are part of the normal forest cycle.  In fact forest firers occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica.  What isn’t so normal about the cycles that we’ve seen for the last few years and perhaps that serve as harbingers of the future is the size and intensity of fires in the U.S. and Canada.

Primary Causes of Wildfires
Most fires are started by natural causes – especially lightning.  However, fires escaping from open trash burning or a tossed cigarette aren’t rare enough.  Even more devastating are those fires which are intentionally set.  In fact, both in the 1940s and even more recently there have been documented attempts by Axis member Japan to Al-Qaeda who have attempted to use forest fires to drive disruption and fear.

Changing Times
Climate:  While wild-land forest fires have always packed a devastating punch, several factors are combining to make things even worse.  Whether you believe in the scientific reality of climate change – natural, human induced, or a combination of effects – there is little argument that weather patterns have shifted.  Many areas are experiencing droughts and little snow pack, leading to drier forests and more intense fires when they do come.

Bugs:  Insects and diseases are another very notable cause.  Perhaps none eclipse the native Mountain pine beetle and the 48 million acres of dead and dying trees across the western states.  These dead trees are ready-made for fires.

Unnatural Conditions:  The Endowment focuses all of its activity in “working forests.”  In short, we don’t “do” wilderness and we aren’t funding short-rotation woody agriculture.  Those working forests – what most folks would view as “natural” forests whether planted or naturally regenerating – depending on the species and location, have certain norms that make them more-or-less fire resistant.  Using the theory that one picture is worth a thousand words – here’s a string of three pictures that we think is worth millions of words.

This series of photos was taken of exactly the same spot on the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana by the USDA Forest Service.  Starting on the left (1909) after a harvest in an area where fire had been excluded since 1895.  The Second is in 1948 and the final in 2004.  Note the changes in vegetation.  If fire passed through the stand on the left it would have done little damage.  The one in the middle would have experienced some loss but many larger trees would have survived.  However, the current stand which is exemplary of all-too-many of America’s forests today in fire-prone areas would surely be a total loss.

Carlton N. Owen

Land Stewards and Their Helpers

What do 15,000 folks in Hawaii have in common with more than 686,000 in New York?  They are owners of a piece of America’s forest.

Earlier this week I received a copy of the USDA Forest Service’s State and Private Forestry Annual Report – April 2012.  It was accompanied by a much longer Appendix comprised of State and Territorial fact sheets.  Receiving  this in the midst of the now full-blown race for the White House , and all of the sound bites about “too much” or “too little” government, got me to thinking about the men and women who own America’s forests and those who help them tend it.

Who Owns America’s Forests
We are indeed one of the most blessed nations on the planet.  Parts of those blessings arise from the fact that one-third of our expansive land is blanketed with tree cover!  And, not too far down the list of blessings comes in the fact that all 308 million of us as American’s own a part of that forest heritage whether it be held in trust in National Forests, state forests, parks or other public lands. 

The part of this picture that too many of us take for granted is that the largest slice of that “forest pie” is not owned by us individually nor collectively, rather, some 35% of that forestland –some 251 million acres – is held by families and individuals.  And a lot of them … nearly 11 million owners.

In our system of government they clearly “own” the trees and the land.  Yet, there are many public benefits that accrue to us all without our direct engagement either in the form of payment or responsibility.  Those private forests help clean our air, filter and provide our drinking water, and serve as homes to a vast array of wildlife.

Managing a Forest Takes a Village
Harkening back to another line from yet another Presidential campaign, I recall the one that served to once again divide us when Hillary Clinton published her book, “It takes a Village.”  This borrowed line from an African proverb about the impact that all in a community have in helping to raise a child, has similar implications when we think about forests.

Yes, clearly the landowner carries a heavier responsibility and burden than do others (just as do parents).  Yet, few landowners walk that road alone (again, just as do parents).  Most call on the services of a consulting forester to help them develop and implement a management plan to achieve their objectives.  Few landowners – private or corporate – maintain the necessary firefighting equipment to call upon when disaster threatens.  Nor, do many own their own mills to serve as a market for their raw materials.

Indeed, forest ownership and management is a complicated business.  Among the many blessings we have are the well-trained men and women of the primary federal natural resources agency – the USDA Forest Service – and their state-based compatriots at the forestry commissions and state forestry services that have for decades been there when the fires were raging, the bugs attacking, and after the harvest with seedlings to help start that new forest.

In a time of dumbing-down of very complex issues into one-line sound bites, it is important that we all remember and say a word of appreciation to the men and women who steward America’s private forests and those who help them tend it.  I for one am very thankful for the professionals at the federal and state level who answer that calling in concert with the range of private businesses who help make up the forestry village.

Written by: Carlton Owen

Keeping Forests as Forests While Helping Disadvantaged Families

In the rural south, one of the primary and historic sources of rural African American wealth—land ownership—drains out through land loss, damaging the potential of communities to capture and regenerate wealth.  Within the context of a comprehensive system of landowner support, expanding and improving the practice of sustainable forestry can help plug the land leak by demonstrating the productive capacity of the land, creating new income for landowners, increasing land value, stabilizing land ownership, and slowing the conversion of working forests to development.   That’s the theory behind the Endowment’s newest project – “Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention.”

Ownership Losses Undermine Families
Black farmland ownership peaked in 1910 at 16 to 19 million acres.   By 2007, this number had dropped to 3.3 million acres.  In a very recent indication of the scale of ownership, the Center for Heirs Property Preservation in Charleston, SC mapped 41,000 acres of heir property in the rural counties surrounding them.  Heir property is land with unclear title and complex family ownership due to lack of wills, making it particularly vulnerable to loss.  It is believed that a large percentage of heir property landowners are African American.

Despite dramatic land loss across the rural south, farm and forest land continues to be an important source of African American family wealth, with a total value of $14.3 billion in 1999.  An estimated 43% of Black farmland owners have forestland totaling 1.2 million acres.   About 16% of Black-owned farmland is in forests with the average forestland holding being 43 acres.

Drivers of Change are Many
The causes of under-utilization and involuntary loss of rural African American land are numerous and complex. In addition to fragmented family ownership (heir property), financial pressure from development and consequent rising taxes, failure to maximize potential income from land due to lack of information, limited access to government programs, and lack of credit are contributing factors.

Moreover, support for African American forest owners is fragmented and difficult to access.  Historic discrimination and subsequent lack of trust have resulted in under-utilization of USDA Rural Development, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), USDA Forest Service (USFS), and state extension forestry programs by African American landowners.  Additionally, nonprofits in the region that do provide support to African American landowners are often very under-resourced and, as a result, lack capacity.  Currently, USDA programs to address past deficiencies in government outreach to minority and limited resource landowners create a particular opportunity for nonprofit/government collaboration.

Best Hope Found in Collaboration
There is a long history of grassroots, nonprofit, and philanthropic involvement in the field of African American land retention and communities and practitioners have made much progress in understanding and addressing African American land loss. Through “Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention,” the Endowment seeks to learn from, leverage, and move forward the work that has been and is being done.