Technical Service Provider Training to Improve Services for Family Forest Landowners

Technical Service Provider Training to Improve Services for Family Forest Landowners

Summary

In 2014, Northwest Natural Resource Group (NNRG) formalized the curriculum for the TSP training workshops and hosted the first two-day workshop. Nine natural resource professionals participated in the training.

NNRG continued outreach to forest producers in Washington and Oregon about the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) and encouraged landowners to submit applications for conservation practices. Eight forest producers reported to NNRG that they applied for 2015 EQIP funding. Since the start of this project, more than 55 forest owners have reported to NNRG that they applied for EQIP. At least 25 forest producers have been awarded EQIP funds that have been used to develop management plans and restoration practices on more than 1,780 acres.

Through NNRG’s Northwest Certified Forestry (NCF) program, NNRG assisted nine additional landowners this year in conducting commercial thinning operations to improve forest health and wood quality and generate income for forest owners and natural resource contractors. Through this project, NNRG has worked with 15 landowners on harvest treatments across 240 acres.

Objectives/Performance Targets

There remains a steady interest in the TSP program from 5-10 forest professionals who work across Washington and western Oregon. The second TSP training workshop will occur in spring 2015 and will be targeted to attract these individuals, as well as early professionals, other contractors that could potentially service EQIP projects, public agency staff, and the Oregon and Washington natural resource professional community. NNRG has begun to incorporate the lessons learned from teaching the first TSP workshop to further improve the structure and results of the training. Additionally, NNRG will continue efforts to inform forest owners about EQIP opportunities in an effort to assist in conservation objectives and to grow the potential pool of clients for forestry professionals who become TSPs.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Technical Service Provider Training

NNRG hosted the first TSP workshop in March 2014 in Tacoma, WA. The two-day workshop entailed an overview of TSP training, the Farm Bill, EQIP funding, NRCS Priority Resource Concerns, TSP and EQIP payment rates, developing Conservation Activity Plans (CAPs), developing and implementing EQIP-funded conservation projects, designing NRCS job sheets, and using the NRCS Web Soil Survey. Workshop participants received a USB flash drive with the toolkit of materials for registering for the TSP program and managing EQIP-funded projects.

Nine natural resource professionals participated in the course. Their primary service areas ranged throughout southwest and northern Washington counties, including: Clark, Island, King, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom. One participant has already reported completing the TSP registration process.

Feedback on the workshop content was positive as participants gained a comprehensive overview of the TSP program and began the process of registering through NRCS eAuthentication and AgLearn. Regardless of how many of these participants eventually complete the entire TSP registration process, feedback indicates that these participants will be advocates and ambassadors for the program through their professional careers.

Participants expressed concerns over the TSP program related to: 1) the complexity of steps to register for becoming a TSP, and 2) disparities of funding between different NRCS Local Working Groups (LWGs), as each region, prioritizes differently on objectives related to forest management. The effort to keep apprised of changing LWG priorities or informing the priority process was seen as a business cost and potential barrier to using the program. Other professionals recognized that the EQIP cost-share approach could bring new clients to them and allow them to help existing clients achieve additional forest management goals.

Learning from these comments and experience, NNRG will seek to prepare participants in advance for the steps to register for the TSP program. Specifically, NNRG will guide workshop participants through the process of registering in the eAuthentication and AgLearn programs in advance of the workshop. Completing these tasks in advance will allow participants to further complete the training modules and materials submission process during the workshop.

EQIP Recruitment

This outreach campaign has focused on increasing landowner awareness about cost-share opportunities that can assist them in implementing conservation practices such as pre-commercial thinning, stand release, culvert replacements for fish passage, management plan creation, wildlife habitat enhancement, and other practices important to improving and maintaining the health of natural resources.

In spring and fall 2014, NNRG continued the “Funding Forest Stewardship-Stories of Success” EQIP media campaign. Outreach included email announcements, newsletters, workshop collateral, and social media announcements to more than 1,400 forest owners in the NNRG database. These efforts targeted Oregon and Washington forest owners and encouraged them to apply for EQIP by the 2014 and 2015 deadlines (currently November 21, 2014 in Washington, and January 16, 2015 in Oregon).

A result of this outreach, eight landowners reported to NNRG that they applied for 2015 EQIP funding; including 3 CAPs. Since the beginning of this project, 55 landowners have indicated to NNRG that they applied for EQIP; thus, contributing toward the goal of recruiting 80-100 landowners to EQIP by 2015. Determining the number of forest producers that NNRG assisted directly or indirectly is challenging as the NRCS does not publicly publish the list of awardees. More producers are expected to notify NNRG of their awarded EQIP contracts in the spring of 2015 as they seek eligible TSP’s to assist them with their CAPs and on-the-ground conservation projects.

Per a Freedom of Information Act request to NRCS, the agency reports it awarded the following EQIP contacts:

2012 – Oregon 476; Washington 223
2013 – Oregon 217; Washington 182
2014 – Oregon 197; Washington 197

These EQIP contracts include all agricultural and forestry related practices. Agency staff indicate that they cannot provide further breakdown on the contracts awarded due to privacy and legal restrictions.

Following EQIP recruitment efforts from this project, NNRG worked with 25 landowners to develop Conservation Activity Plans the past two years (15 in 2013, 10 in 2014). These activity plans account for 1,780 acres in western Washington. NNRG also served as the TSP to four forest producers who implemented EQIP projects that included pre-commercial thinning, understory planting and, wildlife habitat enhancement.

Harvest Assistance to Forest Producers

In 2014, nine forest producers signed up to conduct commercially viable forest thinning projects through NNRG’s NCF program. At least two landowners conducted the commercial harvest based on recommendations from the CAPs they developed in 2013. Several others are considering applying for future EQIP funds to develop management plans following their experience with the harvest work. Since the start of this project, 15 forest producers have conducted commercially viable forest thinning projects through NCF.

• TSP Workshop Announcement
• TSP Training Agenda
• EQIP Mailer #1 from 2014-15 Campaign
• EQIP Mailer #2 from 2014-15 Campaign
• EQIP Mailer #3 from 2014-15 Campaign
• EQIP Mailer #4 from 2014-15 Campaign
• EQIP Mailer #3 from 2013-14 Campaign

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

The desired outcome of the TSP training is for 10-12 participants to complete the TSP E-authentication, registration, Ag Learn trainings and submit documents to await final NRCS review. In addition, NNRG intends for the course to include tools for new TSPs to successfully manage EQIP projects and introduce their clients and other forest owners to EQIP funding.

Promoting EQIP throughout this project is an important step for removing barriers to sustainable rural economic development. These efforts engage forest producers in seeking conservation assistance in a program, which in turn, engages professional foresters to become TSPs to meet the needs of landowners. This nexus will result in landowners having the information, economic and skilled contractor resources, and technical assistance needed to conduct restoration and conservation activities on their forests.

In the first half of 2015, NNRG will conduct the second TSP training; connect TSPs to potential EQIP clients, continue EQIP promotion; facilitate additional CAP development and EQIP projects, administer commercial harvest projects; and coordinate with forest owners and potential TSPs in developing recommendations for improvements to EQIP. 

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