Striving for Forest Sustainability: A Better Way to Assess Progress
A new will explore efforts in º£½ÇÉçÇø to promote sustainable forest management, including a newly implemented state policy that provides both incentives to landowners and a more scientific approach.
, Assistant Research Professor in the School of Forest Resources, and a team of Uº£½ÇÉçÇø faculty, graduate students, and research scientists will be working with stakeholders to better understand the status of forest sustainability in º£½ÇÉçÇø and how it is influenced by forest policy, including a recently implemented initiative. The team includes experts in ecological, economic, and social factors related to forest management.
Under the Outcome Based Forestry (OBF) initiative, first proposed in º£½ÇÉçÇø by the º£½ÇÉçÇø Forest Service in 1999 but only recently implemented for the first time in 2013, a landowner would agree to demonstrate measurable progress toward achieving the State of º£½ÇÉçÇø’s Goals for Forest Sustainability. In return, the º£½ÇÉçÇø Forest Service (MSF) would provide incentives, such as exemption from certain provisions of state forest policy. It is a different approach than the º£½ÇÉçÇø Forest Practices Act (FPA), the longtime regulatory mechanism.