Sustainable Rural Economies

Western Caucus Field Hearing May 2

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Photo by Sharon
Photo by Sharon

I have a set of notes, which I have been unable to locate, however here is some information about the hearing I attended last week. In general, the dialogue among Coloradans was more focused on specific practices than the generalized partisan nature of some D.C. hearings. The point of the hearing, after all, was to find out what Coloradans are thinking and doing. But I will give my impressions after I find my notes.

The first panel was Gale Norton and Mike King..Mike is the Director of Natural Resources for the State of Colorado, in the Hickenlooper Administration (D). He started off by saying that that forest health and wildfire issues are beyond partisanship (or similar words).

Here’s a link to his testimony as well as others. Below is an excerpt from Mike’s testimony here.

Recovery From 2012 Wildfires

As the Committee is likely aware, Colorado had an intense fire season in 2012. It started uncharacteristically early and led to a great deal of damage. The Lower North Fork, the High Park, and the Waldo Canyon fires all occurred along the highly populated metropolitan corridor from north of Fort Collins down south to Colorado Springs. Collectively, those fires resulted in six fatalities, scorched 110,368 acres, and destroyed 744 structures.

Recovery efforts began before the fire season was over last summer, and has continued. Federal support in the form of increased funding for the Emergency Watershed Projection program was recently included in the Continuing Resolution for the FY13 federal budget, and will be instrumental in helping our local governments. Nearly $20 million is expected to come to the state as a result of this measure, and treatments will include mulching, seeding, channel stabilization, and contour tree felling. However, with so many resource values in need of attention – water quality, erosion, road corridors, revegetation – even this robust federal support is insufficient to meet the need completely.

Local governments began meeting a few months ago to coordinate their fire recovery efforts, share information about funding, and learn from each other’s experiences. As a part of those conversations, entities that have been engaged in the range of recovery activities have tracked those expenditures. To date, state and local public funds spent on recovery from the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs has totaled $10.5 million; recovery from the High Park fire in Fort Collins has totaled $9 million. Those funds don’t include the millions that were lost in private property and insurance claims. It is with
this damage in mind that Colorado has worked to elevate forest health and wildfire risk reduction to the highest policy levels.
Federal Role
Authorities
Governor Hickenlooper, in sync with other Western Governors, has identified two federal authorities that have played a key role in Colorado as we work to find a private market for forest products, enhance the health of our forests, and reduce the risk from wildfire. Those provisions are Stewardship Contracting and Good Neighbor Authority.

Stewardship Contracting allows the USFS to focus on goods (trees and other woody biomass) for services (removal of this material), and helps the agency make forest treatment projects more economical. Individuals who seek to build a business that requires a reliable supply of timber have consistently reported that long term Stewardship Contracts provide them with the security they need to secure investments. We support permanent authorization for stewardship contracting.

Good Neighbor Authority allows states, including our own Colorado State Forest Service, to perform forest treatments on national forest land when they are treating neighboring non-federal land. This landscape-scale approach is essential for achieving landscape-scale forest health. Fires don’t respect ownership boundaries. We support permanent authorization for Good Neighbor Authority.

Fire Suppression
Early response to wildfires is essential to ensure public safety, reduce costs, and minimize damage to natural resources. Western Governors have repeatedly noted their concern with the ongoing pattern whereby land management agencies exhaust the funds available for firefighting and are forced to redirect monies from other programs, including, ironically, fire mitigation work. Raiding the budgets for recreation in order to pay for fire suppression presents a significant problem in Colorado, where our outdoor recreation opportunities on public land are unparalleled. We support minimizing fire transfer within the federal land management agencies, and more fully funding existing suppression accounts.

As far as I can tell, there were no professional journalists at the hearing.If you see news stories that were generated from a journalist attending, please let me know.

“A Modest Proposal”- Certification for National Forests II

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NFCertificationStudy_PIC 1

Yesterday’s discussion was interesting, and I think we need to carry it forward. But my first thought was that I was proposing a solution to what many perceive to be a problem. It occurs to me that we may need to back up to understand how people think about whether there is a problem or not.

IF cutting trees and selling them can be done in a sustainable way (as environmental folks seem to think about FSC) (I know there is controversy about SFI vs. FSC, and I also don’t like the idea of public forests being managed to standards developed by third parties, still, the reason I brought it up is that it says that environmental groups think timber harvesting is OK in specific places, with specific practices).

I think it’s well worth a read of the Pinchot Institute’s National Forest Certification study Executive Summary here. If you have more time, you might be interested in the other documents.

This is from the Executive Summary of the Pinchot Institute study about forest certification:

This represented an important breakthrough in the contentious arena of forest conservation.
No longer were forest industry and environmental activists simply locked in a legal and policy stalemate over whether timber harvesting could take place, but how it could take place while ensuring that it is ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible. These developments also held out the promise of calming some of the public controversy around forest management, by providing citizens with credible assurances that the forests in question were not being overexploited, and adequate protection was being provided for forest areas of exceptional importance for conservation values such as biodiversity, wildlife habitat or water quality

During the time period I was reviewing this study I always considered this to be MBWT “or management by wishful thinking”, but it is asserted in the study (also the Executive Summary):

This report describes the results of independent audits of five units of the National Forest System ranging from 500,000 to 1.5 million acres in size. This case study is the culmination of what has become a ten-year research project that ultimately involved forest certification audits on state forestlands in seven states, 30 areas of Native American tribal forestlands, and one national park. It should be noted that, in each case, the independent audits identified needs for corrective
actions, and in each case these were successfully addressed by the agencies’ forest managers. A general conclusion among the agencies themselves is that the reduction in costs associated with public controversy and legal challenges—not only on agency budgets but on the spirit and morale of their forest managers—more than offset the time and expense associated with the certification process.

(Italics mine)

So here were a couple of my concerns:

1) FSC practices are (were) all over the map. It would be better to certify to publicly developed practices (the equivalent of the broad labor union contract in conflict resolution?). But environmental groups are attached to FSC; we could have the public develop the practices and have third party audits, but then it wouldn’t be “FSC”. With all the technical and scientific folks in NFS and R&D and all the folks with practitioner knowledge, the State wildlife folks, etc. it just seems like you could do a better job with standards than FSC did.

2) It would be better for the FS to have a broader third party audits in terms of its management (beyond vegetation management, the whole enchilada, recreation, grazing, oil and gas, ski areas) (not so sure I still think that).

Now, some may think that everything is fine now. But I would ask everyone to “listen with the ears of the heart” as per Benedict of Nursia to a previous comment on this blog here by Rob DeHarport, where I think he articulated “the problem” clearly:

In my humble opinion the problem is two-fold. The first part is the utter failure of President Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). Of the five stated priorities or goals in the NWFP, none have been fulfilled. Lawsuits and the potential of lawsuits on virtually every timber sale in the NW have resulted in the “Gordian Knot” that former USFS Chief Jack Ward Thomas has referred to in his assessment of the failed NWFP of which he was a key player. The state of Oregon, timber dependent counties, cities and schools continue to struggle to replace lost revenues that occurred soon after the Northwest Spotted Owl (NWSO) was listed as an endangered species.Neither the NWSO or local and state economies have been able to replace lost revenues despite the best efforts.
However, budgets have tightened, increased taxes are not likely in already poor counties. Curry County is virtually bankrupt. Lane County can not afford to hold violent criminals in jail, etc. etc. Meanwhile, the Federal government Rural School Funds have dried up as the nation continues to print and borrow money at a record and unsustainable pace. The NWFP was supposed to find a “middle ground,” it did not happen. Yet, here we are nearly 20 years later living with a failed plan. Governor Kitzhaber created another committee of stake-holders to find a solution with little or no success.
Mac McConnell’s statement is true. In US House District 4 there are nearly 5 million acres of National Forest. Since the NWFP logging has been scaled back far below what the NWFP called for due to continued protests. The logging that is occurring on these lands will essentially create a 5 million acre spotted owl reserve. As the thinning projects leave trees that are less than 80 years old to grow to age 80 and older- thus becoming “Old Growth Spotted Owl Habitat.”
I live in the Oakridge area of the Willamette National Forest, I have walked with USFS staff through a couple of thinning timber sales as I mentioned in the previous paragraph. These sales take years of planning and navigation through the “Gordian Knot.” There is also the excellent Jim’s Creek Oak Savanna Restoration Project near my home that has been stymied at a little more than 400 acres due to the very real risk of litigation or the lack of commitment by USFS upper management to allow such good sound forestry.
Here are two paragraphs from Wikipedia concerning the Elliott State Forest:
Controversy arose in 2011 in response to changes in the way the forest is managed. Adopted by the land board in October 2011, a new management plan aims to increase annual net revenue from the forest to $13 million, up from $8 million. It would achieve this by increasing the annual timber harvest to 40 million board feet culled from 1,100 acres (450 ha), of which about three-fourths could be clearcut. The former management plan, adopted in 1995, called for 25 million board feet from 1,000 acres (400 ha), half of it clearcut.[5]

The plan also changed the way in which the forest is managed to protect threatened and endangered species such as spotted owls, marbled murrelets, and Coho salmon. Supporters of the new plan say it will benefit wildlife by making more acres off-limits to logging than had been reserved for owls, murrelets, and watershed protection under the old plan. Opponents of the plan say it will damage habitat and harm wildlife. They would prefer a plan that promotes thinning of young trees, avoids clear-cutting, and seeks other ways of raising revenue from the CSF lands.[5]
In July 2012 despite the great recession the US imported $216 million dollars of softwood lumber from Canada. (according to the Sept. 17, Globe and Mail) Meanwhile rural Oregon timber counties have a unemployment rate that is actually over 20%, and our forest continue to be passively managed at best.
I am the Mayor of the small community of Westfir and serve on the Oakridge, Oregon School Board. I know first hand how failed policy has impacted rural Oregon timber towns and counties. There is a middle ground, we have not come close to finding that sweet spot in managing our forests.

I’d be interested in hearing

If you don’t think that there is a problem, and why..

What you think about whether certification alone would solve “the problem” in your opinion.
Apparently some in the environmental community doesn’t want NFS to do certification, I’d be interested in their rationale, if anyone knows.

Forest Service to Ohio: Give us back the money

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There was somethin’ funny about this but I didn’t quite get it until I read this analogy here…

Suppose your employer announced a 5-percent reduction in income and, because of that, a 5-percent reduction in pay for all employees.

Would you expect him to demand that you return 5 percent of the pay you’ve already received for the year?

Probably not.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has yet to decide his response to the Forest Service demand for retroactive cuts.

But that’s the scenario facing the state of Ohio.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, the Budget Control Act of 2011, also known as the sequester, cut the budgets of three programs: the Secure Rural Schools program, the 25 Percent Fund and the Grasslands program.

But a bunch of these states voted for this Administration.. if this is how you treat your friends..??

A great opportunity to tick off governors…

Ohio wasn’t the only state told to return funds. Forty other state governors received similar letters. New Mexico Watchdog discovered that state’s amount was nearly $600,000.

The National Governors Association sent a letter to Tidwell challenging the legality of the demand.

“Other than general references to the March 1, 2013, sequestration…,” the letter stated, “… the March 19 letters provide no specific legal citation to support this demand to return obligated funds.”

Despite the “Forest Service” title on this, I wonder where the decision was really made. Forest Service folks don’t have the culture for generally ticking partners off for the heck of it…

Oregonian Editorial Board on Forest Roads

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While we’re waiting for the objections rule, thought I’d post a few miscellaneous items..

Here’s a link and below are some excerpts.

Forest owners, logging companies and those who value gainful employment won a significant victory Wednesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, which opined that logging roads are not point sources of pollution requiring discharge permits under the Clean Water Act. The lopsided, 7-1 decision reversed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose wisdom promised, warned Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in 2011, to “bury private, state and tribal forest lands in a wave of litigation.”

Party time, right?

Not quite. As important as the decision is for forest owners, some of them are keeping the bubbly on ice until Congress makes the long-standing policy challenged by environmental groups a matter of law. Can you blame them, given the determination of litigants to keep right on litigating and prodding?

and

Meanwhile, environmental lawyer Paul Kampmeier told The Oregonian’s Scott Learn last week, his organization, the Washington Forest Law Center, will keep right on “pushing EPA to do something …” And why not? As Kampmeier pointed out, “The court generally ruled that the ball’s in the EPA’s court.”

The most effective way to provide long-term security for forest owners is to change the law, as legislation sponsored during the last Congress by Wyden and others would do. Unfortunately, the legislation died despite gathering a bipartisan collection of sponsors. It deserves another shot.

This seems to be another of those “Congress should act” kinds of things…perhaps we need a grassroots movement for “Congress stepping up” in some of these areas? Perhaps a “sustainable forests and national forest communities” Manifesto?

Barry Wynsma: U.S. Forest Service Collaboration Process: Solution or Sham?

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This is pretty interesting because Mr. Wynsma was able to obtain a great deal of information, (should that information be available more generally?) and also his observations as employee and collaborator. I’m starting a page on ideas for solving “the Problem” and will put his ideas, as well as the ideas found (buried?) in comments here, on that page. Here’s the link, and below is an excerpt.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Truth about Collaboration

Even though I don’t believe the current process for collaboration will solve these problems, that doesn’t mean there aren’t good things about the collaborative process or that the process can’t be improved upon to help solve the problems.

Here’s what I and other current and retired Forest Service acquaintances I contacted think are good things about the collaborative process:

Involving a diverse group of people (I hate the term “stakeholders”) during the project planning process is a good thing. I believe it helps the Forest Service design projects that better meet the desires of the public, even though it’s impossible to meet everybody’s personal opinions on how to best manage the public forests.
With collaboration comes group ownership in projects and support from start to finish.
Joint solutions and commitment means no backing out.
The collaborative program provides assistance with funding to accomplish needed treatments.
Collaboration can help lay people better understand the complexity of forest management.
Collaboration may build community relationships that encourage continuing positive working relationships between Forest Service people and the community.
Collaborative groups police themselves and force extremists on both sides of the spectrum to consider what they are really saying philosophically vs. practically on any given issue.

On the other hand, there are things about collaboration that are not so good, if not bad. Here’s what I and other current and retired Forest Service acquaintances I contacted think are bad things about the collaborative process:

The collaborative process is time consuming and more costly than the traditional process of public scoping and comment gathering for projects. The more people involved in a project, the harder it is to schedule meeting dates and field trips that will maximize the largest group involvement. The results of my inquiry clearly show that projects aren’t moving through the NEPA and appeals process any faster than normal and possibly even taking longer.
The time consuming nature of collaboration can be a major deterrent to people that are not paid to attend meetings during working hours, people who have limited free time or travel. Forest Service people can become weary of after hour meetings, paid or not paid.
Meetings can go on for months, if not years. This consumption of time makes it difficult, if not impossible, for many people to take part.
Poorly managed meetings generate negative emotions and can ruin the entire process.
For individuals or groups with an agenda to limit or eliminate forest management, collaboration can provide an opportunity to wear others down by dragging meetings on and on, then appeal and/or litigate after an extended collaboration process. Collaboration can also usurp the agency’s authority.
The Forest Service may or may not be aware of hidden agendas or games being played by some members in a collaborative group.
Forest Service specialists may feel like they get “cut-out” of project development.
Also considering project specialists: the more days they have to spend in meetings, the less time they have to conduct field work and write reports, which extend the timeline for implementing projects.

The ugly truth is that collaboration won’t reduce analysis paralysis, appeals and litigation. Collaboration also won’t increase the rate at which the Forest Service can reduce fuels and restore unhealthy forests until the appeals process and our current myriad of conflicting environmental laws are reformed.

So what are some possible ways to improve the collaborative process?

Here’s a few:

After all the time and effort put into project development by collaborative groups and the Forest Service, it simply isn’t fair to the collaborative or to the taxpayers of this country to allow an inexpensive process for individuals and groups, whether they were members of the group or not, to stop or delay project implementation through appeals and litigation.

Congress should pass a new law that will exempt collaborative projects from the appeal or objection process. They should also include bonding requirements for any individual or group that file suits to stall or stop collaborative projects.

Congress should also reform or eliminate the Equal Access to Justice Act, which allows litigants to recuperate court costs from the tax paying public.

The Forest Service should develop a new Categorical Exclusion to replace the Healthy Forests Restoration Act version (CE #10) that allowed for fuels reduction timber harvests less than 1,000 acres in size. The CE #10 was rescinded following a lawsuit filed by environmental groups because in my opinion this CE allowed for expedited implementation of fuels reduction projects.

To get a broader spectrum of public involvement, make more use of the internet to gather input from people who want to participate in collaboration but don’t have the time or money to show up for meetings and field trips. The Forest Service could maintain email mailing lists for projects that people want to be engaged in and could be kept up to date on the progression of projects without having to show up for meetings. For example, with the smart phone technology I could imagine a logger sitting in the woods during a lunch break or a hiker up on a mountain top being able to participate in a collaborative project.

Note from Sharon: I was somewhat involved in the development of CE#10, not sure that would help at the end of the day. I really like his last point in terms of the criticism I hear from both sides.

Timber Industry Returns.. to Colorado?

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Beetle-kill, or blue-stained, pine can be milled into dimension lumber. (Colorado State Forest Service)
Beetle-kill, or blue-stained, pine can be milled into dimension lumber. (Colorado State Forest Service)

One of the interesting things about this blog is that we get to compare conditions that aren’t usually compared across our areas, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, California, the SW, Wyoming and South Dakota and Colorado. We could probably use more contributors from the Midwest, East and South.

This interesting piece is from the Aspen Business Journal, of Aspen, Colorado. (I was thinking the same information might be written differently if it were written, in say, Boulder…;))

Here’s the link and below are excerpts.

While Colorado’s forests continue to suffer from beetle epidemics at high altitude and the hangover from a century’s fire suppression at lower altitude, there’s some good news out there for those who believe in active forest management.

Timber prices, which were bottomed out during much of Colorado beetle kill epidemic, are set to skyrocket, and the state’s timber industry may be rising in time to take advantage, industry experts said. And while there are millions of acres of standing dead timber that may never be harvested, there’s also some good news out there for at salvaging at least some of the beetle-kill pine, as well.

“In general, we’re still suffering the impacts of a century of fire suppression, so at this point active management makes a lot of sense,” said Mike Eckhoff, a PhD Candidate in forest science at Colorado State University.

“We’ve lost 80 percent of our (timber) productivity since the 1980s,” Eckhoff said. “This could be a boon for Colorado’s timber industry provided that timber is actually made available for the industry to use.”

Timber prices hit an eight-year high in March, largely due to the rising U.S. housing market. Research by the International Wood Markets indicates the U.S. and Canada probably will not be able to fulfill that timber demand in two to three years, creating even higher prices and perhaps prompting imports from Europe.

Canadian timber production was hurt by the pine beetle epidemic, the report said, but also by permanent mill closings during the recession and the loss of two large mills due to fire.

The past failure of the Colorado timber industry is usually blamed on the U.S. Forest Service making fewer trees available in light of environmental resistance to logging. While the beetle-kill epidemic and catastrophic wildfires may have taken some of the edge off the latter concern, forest industry experts are now more worried that cuts to the Forest Service’s budget may hinder making wood available through forest management.

and

In addition, things have also been looking up for Colorado’s two large pellet mills, and rising timber prices will also help them, Fishering said.

“Our industry is pretty diverse, and we’re a lot more competitive than we were in the ’70s,” she said. “We are extremely optimistic.”

Colorado may also be able to salvage much more of the standing dead lodgepole pine, than previously thought, Eckoff said. While most industry experts thought that after three or four years the beetle-kill trees were not sturdy enough to create dimension timber, he said, new studies indicate that doesn’t appear to be the case for trees that have not fallen.

The upland spruce trees that are now being killed by the spruce bark beetle are highly prized in the industry, though not all the acreage will be available to loggers. In fact, about two-thirds of the state’s 4.5 million acres of spruce-fir forests are off limits to management because of wilderness or roadless designation, according to a study by the Colorado State Forest Service.

Still, Eckhoff thought there are plenty of acres in need of management that could be producing forest products.

“Colorado produces an annual net forest growth of 1.5 billion board feet, but we only harvest 6 percent of that, or 87 million board feet,” he said. “In other words the removals do not significantly reduce the interest nor do they touch the principal.”

Reflections on the Senate Committee Hearing by JZ , and Brainstorming Possible Solutions

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JZ sent a comment on the “collaboration is bad for NEPA” thread here. I took part of it out and made a separate post.. as there is a need to ask this larger question . I agree with JZ that the Senate discussion was much more deep and serious. There’s a lot to examine there, including the testimony. They are looking for ideas (that would be acceptable to the Administration, an unknown) so I would propose that we do some brainstorming about solutions that both sides might find acceptable right here on this blog. Mac has proposed Trust lands (as did Jay O’Laughlin in his testimony), some have suggested giving land to the states (don’t think folks on this blog think that’s a good idea), place-based legislation is not popular for a variety of reasons, what else is there?

Here’s what JZ says:

Today’s Senate E & NR committee hearing had a markedly more professional and solution oriented tone than a similar hearing the House NR committee a couple weeks ago:

http://naturalresources.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=206115

The end messages of each of the hearings seems to be the same though. The FS isn’t doing enough (logging) and can not fulfill their mission and provide for local communities. These are issues that have been raised to the point of repeated congressional attention.

What, pray-tell, is at the root of the Agency’s inability to accomplish its mission and provide more logs/timber/jobs particularly here in Region 1??? (the most appealed/sued region in the country).

Is it declining budgets? Lack of workforce (retirements, etc)? Probably a major factor.

How about “analysis paralysis” (over thinking/analyzing the same comments) and dealing with antiquated forest plans and the threat of appeal/litigation? I’d venture this is even more of a factor.

Update: Here’s a story from the Oregonian, and what Wyden said

Wyden supports more cutting but, “Short-cuts like selling off federal lands or ignoring environmental laws cannot be expected to pass the Senate or be signed by the President.” Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian
“We now have across the country cash-strapped rural counties facing deadlines later this spring to decide about retaining teachers, whether or not to close schools, what to do about law enforcement and roads and other basic services,” Wyden said.

So, readers, do you agree with anyone at the hearing? With JZ? What are your solutions to the problem, in additional to the ones mentioned above?

Committee Hearing on Now Senate Committee on Secure Rural Schools

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I didn’t get to posting this sooner, sorry…it’s on right now.

Here’s the link to the webcast..

Here are some quotes from an E&E news story yesterday..

Members will hear from Obama administration officials, county advocates and researchers on ways to extend or reform the Secure Rural Schools program (SRS), which expired last October, and Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), whose funding source will soon expire.

The programs provide a financial lifeline particularly for rural Western counties where timber revenues from federal forests fell sharply in the 1990s as protections were granted to endangered species and their habitat.

The Forest Service has historically returned 25 percent of revenues from federal timber sales to counties, and in western Oregon, the Bureau of Land Management has returned half of timber receipts.

Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who authored SRS more than a decade ago with former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), last week warned that if the program is not extended, counties in western Oregon will soon have to decide whether to lay off teachers, close schools, shed law enforcement jobs or defer road projects.

But while Wyden and Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have pledged to secure at least a short-term extension of SRS, Wyden said such a move alone would fail to provide the financial certainty counties need. Baucus is said to have identified an offset to pay for extending SRS.

“A short-term extension is not a long-term solution for these communities,” Wyden said. “We’ve got to get our people back to work in the woods, for example. We have got to increase the number of jobs in resource-dependent communities where there’s federal lands and federal water. We believe that can be done consistent with protecting our environmental values.”

But striking the right balance between federal aid, increased logging and local tax revenues to stabilize county budgets has eluded lawmakers, conservationists, loggers and local officials for decades.

Extending SRS has never been politically popular, as it is criticized by Republicans and logging advocates as a form of welfare for Western counties that would rather get their revenue from managing the forests. House Republicans have proposed a plan that would require the Forest Service to establish trusts that would meet historic revenue targets through sharp increases in timber harvests.

But the bill would lift bedrock environmental laws and was opposed by Wyden and environmental groups. Few believe the Forest Service could achieve historic timber harvest levels without expanding the use of clearcuts.

Wow.. news.. huh.. not very clear on what “bedrock environmental laws” would be lifted. I also like the “few believe”.. I don’t remember being asked ;), wonder who was?

I’m also going to start a new category.. I’ve been putting these kinds of efforts under Community Forest Management, Role of local and state government, trust management, county payments, etc.
They are solutions to the underlying issue of “sustainable rural economies.” So I’m going to delete those categories and start a new one, unless I hear differently. Also looking for a category name more inspiring than “sustainable rural economies>”

But I think these are solutions to the problem and we need to track the whole problem and all the possible solutions. This would include place based, trusts, giving to the state, etc. But I think it’s important to focus on a positive vision of what the solutions would do..