Sustaining Ecological and Economic Diversity Among Limited Resource Landholders by Expanding Opportunities for Management of Productive Woodlands

Sustaining Ecological and Economic Diversity Among Limited Resource Landholders by Expanding Opportunities for Management of Productive Woodlands

Summary

Combining productive and sustainable woodlands with farming systems raises quality of life and diversity, especially for landowners not always able to take full advantage of forest management opportunities. Our two goals are to strengthen the capacities of limited-resource, traditionally under-served forest landholders to sustainably and profitably manage their forest resources, and to identify opportunities for and constraints on their participation in timber and alternative forest-products sectors. Working with voluntary organizations, community leaders, and local and state agencies, the project team focuses on seven counties: Duplin, Halifax, Northampton, Robeson, Sampson and Warren counties in North Carolina, and Brunswick county in Virginia.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Objective 1: to develop and apply methods for identifying and contacting landholders.
Objective 2: to describe and analyze the preferences, opportunities, and constraints that inform decision-making about woodland management within farming systems.
Objective 3: to analyze and select technically proven options for woodland management that are sustainable and appropriate to farm family goals and economic systems.
Objective 4: to extend these options to the client population through education and outreach.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Methods for identifying and contacting landholders (objective 1) remain a priority. Difficulties have arisen in collating available databases, which have only partial information, and in accessing those specific databases containing information that would identify the appropriate populations in our research counties. To date we have enlisted the assistance of: tax assessors and registrars of deeds in the counties of interest, NRCS and CES in the counties of interest, the NC Division of Forest Resources, USDA FSA and NASS, as well as using fine-grained data from recent censuses of population and agriculture and from county-based GIS data. Consultations on structure of sampling frame alternatives have been productive.

The research group has continued to conduct interviews and listening sessions with landowners, to attend local meetings and festivals, and to identify local interviewers for survey administration. The survey instrument has been revised and tested, reviewed by survey experts, and is being finalized. Research on state and national policy changes that affect non-industrial private forest landowners, and on timber prices in the study area, is ongoing.

Great progress has been made on objective 4 (education and outreach). Three graduate students in the NCSU department of forestry have been working intensively with the research team and other experts on the revision of existing forestry extension materials and the creation of new products. Extension and project personnel have reviewed NCSU’s “Woodland Owner Notes” series, glossaries, and other outreach materials, identifying those that are high priority items for revision in terms of reading level and clarity for the traditionally under-served landowners. Materials have been analyzed using standard reading level guidelines, and illustrations have been added as supplements. Applications for supplemental funding have been made and obtained, so that the first round of revised materials can be published in 2003. Additionally, a key to forestry program service providers in North Carolina has been developed and will be published in brochure and poster formats.

Other activities include:
– A panel at the Society of American Foresters annual meeting with participation not only from the research team but also representatives of industry and community-based NGOs (Warren, S.T., R. Williamson, and E.O. Sills, 2002, “Minority Landholders and Working Forests in the South,” Society of American Foresters, 2002 Convention Proceedings, Washington, D.C. Pp. 262-272).
– Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, August 2002 (Warren, S.T., E.O. Sills, N. Dawson, “Turning every stone: identifying limited-resource, traditionally under-served landowners in the coastal plains of North Carolina and Virginia”).
– Poster presented at the SARE “On the Road with Sustainable Agriculture” gathering in the Research Triangle, NC.
– Various contributions to radio and newsletter media.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

We continue to raise awareness of issues concerning limited-resource, traditionally under-served forest landowners, to respond to inquiries about forest management, to increase press and other media coverage, and to construct a useful database of landowners. By end of summer 2003, we will be able to publish: two revised woodland owner notes (“Guide to consulting foresters,” and “Financial incentives for forest management”) in a new series (probably “Wood-wise”); two fact sheets (“How to make money from your woods” and “So you want to sell your trees?”, in a series tentatively titled “Tips on trees”); a limited run of posters and brochures of the “Key to forestry assistance”. Funding has been obtained from the Rural Resources Extension Act program for these publications.

Collaborators: