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Community-based Forestry: Community Forestry and Upslope Forest Restoration
In a recent article for the Trees Foundation newsletter, Forest & River News, I focused on one aspect of restoring North Coast forests to something approximating historic levels of forest health and productivity: the financial cost of delaying harvests for a generation or more as measured by a Discounted Cash Flow analysis. But, the cost of delayed harvests is only one cost of restoring or creating high conservation value forests populated with bigger, older trees. (read more)
Community-based Forestry: Discounting Future Forests
I'd like to draw your attention to one aspect of evaluating the economic feasibility of forest management focused on growing older, bigger trees: discounting future values. There will be some numbers involved. For some of you this will be overly simplistic, for others it may seem counter intuitive. And, of course, financial analysis will never capture all that we value in our forests. But, I hope you will bear with me. This is an important concept for understanding what it will take to increase inventories, stand ages and ultimately conservation values in working forests on the north coast. (read more)
Community-based Forestry: Redwood Transect--The Challenge and the Opportunity
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Community-based Forestry: Carbon Comes of Age?
In past articles I have touched on the potential support that payments for ecosystem services can provide for community based forestry. (read more)
Shaded Fuel Break Completed
In mid-January 2009, an MRC forestry crew "drove home the golden spike," signaling completion of the Telegraph Ridge Shaded Fuel Break. Running the entire length of Ettersburg Road, the project encompassed 5.8 miles and approximately 74 acres. Along with completed shaded fuel breaks on Wilder Ridge, Prosper Ridge and Panther Gap, this represents a major accomplishment towards the goal of creating a regionally-strategic network of fuel breaks. Funded through the National Fire Plan, these projects complement well work done through the MRC's popular Fire Safe Forests and Homes program, which has created defensible space from wildfire around homes as well as shaded fuel breaks along associated access roads. (read more)