USFS Research Stations

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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.