SW Community Forestry Caucus
 

USFS Research Stations

SUPPORT RESOURCES

The Research and Development Program of the US Forest Service has more than 1000 employees. Many of these persons work throughout the United States through a series of research stations; for example, the Pacific Northwest, the North Central, and Southern Research Stations. While these centers have their own special research programs, some of which have national goals and objectives, they also focus many of their resources on the forest resource and management issues within the region surrounding their location. The stations have their own employed staff and also work with cooperators through agreements to undertake research on specific topics such as insects and disease, ecological health improvement, fire behavior, marketing and utilization, among many others. Within the region of the Four Corners Sustainable Forest Partnership, the primary entity is the Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS, with its main headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado, and sub-units at Flagstaff, Arizona and Albuquerque, New Mexico.)

Even where physical proximity to US Forest Service Research Station offices is reasonably close, there is a need for researchers to reach out to community forestry projects to make applied research available. Such an effort could assist in developing a well-grounded research program, and enhance the dissemination component of many of the station programs. Opportunities for a stronger partnership between community forest practitioners and applied researchers exist in the areas of alternative restoration prescriptions, wildfire mitigation and post-fire effects, and the economics of ecosystem improvement. It would not be unreasonable to consider a USDA national initiative in community forestry research, undertaken under a participatory research framework.

While the examples in the table below provide an illustration of the kinds of research activity that are and can be of assistance to community forestry, it often is the case that this work is not well communicated. The work at the USFS research stations is not exempted from the problem of disseminating relevant research findings to practitioners. In the area of community forestry this can be a very serious concern when linkages and networks are not created within either the organization or among local practitioners. Some success was achieved among cooperators and staff of the Rock Mountain Research Station, forestry faculty and students at Northern Arizona University , through on-going research and monitoring activities with the Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership (GFFP). Numerous opportunities were created through research funding by the Research Station, the availability of research staff, the proximity of restoration demonstration projects on the Coconino National Forest , and significant local partnership capacity through the GFFP to coordinate applied research efforts. A detailed listing of these efforts is available through the GFFP at http://www.GFFP.org.

Agreement No.

Title

Cooperator

PI

End Date

RMRS98126JV

Opportunities For Funding Wildland-Urban Interface Fuels Reduction Programs

NAU

Larson/Mirth

08/05/03

RMRS98159JV

A Cost Analysis Of Wildland-Urban Interface Forest Management Treatments In The Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Type

NAU

Fox, Daugherty

04/30/02

RMRS98180JV

Vegetation Response To Restoration And Prescribed Burning Treatments In Southeastern Arizona And Southwestern New Mexico

Malpai Borderlands Group

Miller

06/30/03

RMRS99094JV

Using Group Selection, Multi-Aged Management Practices To Enhance The Use Of Prescribed Fire In The Southwest

NAU

Bailey

05/30/04

RMRS99158JV

Fire In The Wildland-Urban Interface: A Landscape Modeling Approach

NAU

Fule

12/31/02

00-JV-11221615-108

Vegetation Response to Fire and Fires Surrogate Treatments in the Jemez Mtns , NM

Stephen F. Austin State University

Oswald

05/22/05

01-JV-11221615-233

Inventory and Classification of Wildfire Occurrence in Treated versus Untreated Forest Stands on Southwestern National Forests

New Mexico State University

Fernald/Fowler

01/31/05

02-JV-11221615-039

A Research Agenda For Understanding Behavioral And Economic Responses To Forest Restoration Programs In The Southwest

University Of New Mexico

Berrens/McKee

06/30/04

03-JV-11221615-153

Relation of Stand Structure and Fire Effects on the Rodeo-Chediski Fire

NAU

Fule

05/31/06

03-JV-11221615-290

Effects and Interactions of Mechanical Treatments and Fire on Forest Vegetation Dynamics

NAU

Bailey

09/30/06

03-IA-11221615-309

Monitoring Vegetation Response To Restoration And Prescribed Burning Treatments In Southeastern Arizona And Southwestern New Mexico

Malpai Borderlands Group

McDonald

10/30/04

04-MU-11221615-147

Forest Ecosystem Restoration and Fuels Management in the Greater Flagstaff , Arizona Region

Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership

Kolb, Gatewood

03/01/09

Recent work by Drs. Dennis Becker, Debra Larsen and others is an example of Research Station work that holds considerable promise for assisting community forestry projects in appropriately estimating costs of wood fiber production, and thereby generating more feasible and sustainable economic enterprises. The Becker, et al estimator, which focuses on Southwest Ponderosa Pine, is based on a series of cost and revenue models that allow the user to input their information for labor costs, types of machinery used, hauling distances, depreciation, insurance, profit, and a variety of potential products and markets. The user starts with inputting in depth information about the acres to be harvested or treated, log volumes and sizes, and the efficiencies to which these materials can be processed into specific products. Their work will appear in a forthcoming publication from the Pacific Northwest Research Station, GTR-623.

 

 

 


 
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