ONLINE NEWS

The very brief news release and articles below talk about the support Jeff Bingaman and Larry Craig are throwing at community-based forestry. In a press conference the senators endorsed the recently published book Understanding Community-Based Forest Ecosystem Management and announced a new community-based conservation business act that is in the works. One article appeared in the Albuquerque Tribune and other was by the Associated Press. OCS' Sam Burns is a contributing author to the mentioned book. Contact us for an editorial synthesis describing in detail what the book contains.

I am sending this info out to a few project level coordinators and others who have been involved in community-based efforts who would welcome this news if they have not yet heard. Welcome to you all to this issue of the online news. If you prefer not to receive these occasional communiques, please reply and express your wishes to Tim Richard-- richard_t@fortlewis.edu

Senators Bingaman and Craig issue bipartisan call for legislation to expandcommunity-based, collaborative approaches to forest restoration and wildfiremanagement

WASHINGTON(May 10) A year after the Los Alamos fires resulted in evacuation of thecity, the loss of 235 homes, and the start of one of the most dramatic anddestructive wildfire seasons in a century, a new approach is emerging on thenational scene: community-based forestry.

Followinga decade of interest-based and conflict-ridden approaches to natural resourcemanagement, diverse interests are coming together at the local level to workcollaboratively to improve the ecological sustainability of the forest and thesocial and economic sustainability of communities. Having taken hold at thelocal level, this movement is generating national attention from thoseinterested in restoring ecosystem and watershed health, protecting criticalhabitat for endangered species, reducing threats from wildfire or invasivespecies, and creating conservation-based employment and business opportunities.

SenatorsLarry Craig (R-ID) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), at a Capitol Hill press conferencewith national and regional community forestry leaders, today proposed thedevelopment of legislation to encourage and foster the growth of community-basedforestry projects across the country. In recent years the two senators have heldhearings and sponsored legislation resulting in pilot projects and programs totest new community-based strategies for restoring and maintaining forests byfocusing not on the timber removed from forests, but on the condition in whichforest ecosystems are left.

Theirefforts included community-based forestry provisions in the National Fire Planand the inclusion of five community-based forestry practitioners in a March 29thoversight hearing on the plan, bringing important on-the-ground perspectives todiscussions about how it is working. Sen. Bingaman is Ranking Member of theEnergy and Natural Resources Committee and Sen. Craig is Chairman of the Forestsand Public Land Management Subcommittee.

Thetwo senators also welcomed the publication of a new book that they say willinfluence the development of their legislation and public discussions.Understanding Community-Based Forest Ecosystem Management, (edited byGerald Gray of American Forests,Maia Enzer of Sustainable Northwest, and Jonathan Kusel, Forest CommunicationResearch) outlines how new collaborative approaches are resulting in agreementamong diverse interests for sustainable forest management projects that benefitboth the forest and local communities. The book is a product of 50 communityforest practitioners, public land managers, scientists, and interest grouprepresentatives, and was coordinated by AmericanForests (americanforests.org), the nations oldest conservationorganization.

"Thedevelopment of Community-based forest management is an important and rapidlydeveloping means of resolving local conflicts before they become nationalcatastrophes. This book is an important reference point for people who want tosolve problems rather than generate controversies," said Idaho Senator Larry Craig.

Communityforestry groups, especially active in the West, but also a presence in NewEngland, the South, and Midwesthave organized nationally through the National Network of Forest Practitionersand the Communities Committee of the Seventh American Forest Congress. ThisSpring American Forests and thePinchot Institute for Conservation brought some thirty practitioners, fromtree-planters to horse loggers to those who make products from the byproducts ofrestoration work, to Washington to develop better ways of working with nationalpolicy makers, agencies, and environmental organizations.

Healthyforests are important for healthy and vibrant rural communities and we canthave one without the other, said Sen. Bingaman. It is important that weencourage and support the growth of skilled, local workforces to restore andmaintain our public lands. It is time for additional action to stimulate thegrowth of conservation-based businesses to meet pressing forest management andrestoration needs.

LynnJungwirth, who runs the Watershed Research and Training Center in Hayfork, CA,says that the National Fire Plan developed after last years wildfire seasonis very much in step with key elements of community forestry, including itsprovisions for community fire planning, job opportunities for local andmicrobusiness enterprises, and long-term public investment to restore forests inways that benefit communities.

Werelooking for the National Fire Plan to further involve communities, provideinvestment, collaboration, science, and accountability as called for by Congressin asking for a ten year strategy, said Jungwirth.

Thecollaborative process that lead to the community forestry principles developedat the 1998 workshop that producedthe new book also resulted in the adoption by AmericanForests of an Ecosystem Restoration and Maintenance Agenda, a new set ofcore values and goals to guide its programs. Wildfire ReLeaf, a campaign toinvolve citizens and corporations in the effort to restore fire-damagedecosystems, is the newest AmericanForests initiative to grow out of this commitment.

Theseprinciples which call for an ecosystem workforce, innovative monitoring systems,what we call a civic science, and processes that are open and inclusiveare principles that can be used by groups working at the local, regional, andnational levels, said Gerald Gray, the groups vice president for policy.

Visitwww.americanforests.org for moreinformation. Orders for Understanding Community-Based Ecosystem Management($52.95, including shipping) can be sent to AmericanForests, P.O. Box 2000, Washington, DC 20013.Contact: StevinWestcott, 202-955-4500 x234, or Dan Smith, x208 for more details.

WASHINGTONIna what can only be termed as an unusual pairing, Sen. Jeff Bingaman has joinedforces with conservative Republican Sen. Larry Craig to promote community-basedforest projects.

Craig,from Idaho, is a frequent critic of Western land policies favored byenvironmentalists. But he believes local involvement in forest health is a wayto solve forest issues before they become controversial on a larger scale.

Craigand Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat, will introduce legislation this month fora grant program giving forest communities money for local restoration projects.The bill, called the Community-Based Conservation Business Act, would give local businesses preference when awarding forest-thinning contractsand would require the Forest Service to direct more of its research budget tocreating commercial products from smaller trees.

Atthe core of this effort is the struggle to get businesses and environmentaliststo work together.

"Wehave to figure out how do you put people back in nature," said LynnJungwirth, director of the Watershed Research and Training Center in Hayfork,Calif. during a Thursday news conference to unveil the legislation.

Bothsenators said the community effort could help prevent massive forestfires, like last summer's Cerro Grande Fire.

Commemoratingthe one-year anniversary of the evacuation of Los Alamos, Bingaman said:"Many of the people whose homes were burned are just now rebuilding theirhomes."

InSilver City, on the edge of the Gila National Forest, the senator said, "Ilearned growing up there that the health of the forest and the health of thecommunity go hand in hand."

In2000, Bingaman authored legislation to provide $5 million in grants to NewMexico community organizations for local forest projects. This legislation wouldtake that concept nationwide.

Pointing to a blown up photo of a smoke-filled Los Alamos, Craig said:"This picture demonstrates tragedy but it also represents a very realproblem."

A year after Cerro Grande, senators call for local control of forests

WASHINGTON (AP) _ A year after the start of the Cerro Grande fire, Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Larry Craig said Thursday that it is time for more forest management decisions to be made at a local level.

Bingaman, D-N.M., said the lesson learned from the fire should be that the government needs to support thinning the forests and that local governments should be involved in that effort. The Cerro Grande fire was started May 4, 2000, as a controlled burn set by the National Park Service to thin out excessive growth. But high winds drove the fire out of control forcing the evacuation of nearby Los Alamos May 10. The fire consumed nearly 43,000 acres and destroyed 220 structures leaving more than 400 families homeless.

It was the start of one of the worst fire seasons ever, with more than 7 million acres of forests burnt. Last year, Bingaman sponsored legislation to give $5 million grants to community groups in New Mexico to work with the Forest Service on forest restoration projects. The first grants are expected to be awarded this summer.

Now, Bingaman and Craig, R-Idaho, are trying to make the grant program nationwide through legislation they expect to introduce next month.

``Communities based right in these forests or right near these forests can benefit tremendously from the restoration work that is now being done,'' Bingaman said.

They are also pushing for programs to develop conservation-based businesses and incorporating other recommendations made by American Forests, a national conservation group, in a book entitled Understanding Community-Based Forest Ecosystem Management that the group released Thursday.

The group said years of letting either lumber companies or environmentalists control the policies resulted in shifts between more cutting than the forest could sustain and not enough cutting to reduce burn risks.

They were taking turns being the fat boy on the teeter-totter, said Lynn Jungwirth, director of the Watershed Research and Training Center in Hayfork, Calif. Allowing decisions at the local level would put the power in the hands of people who rely on the health of the forest for their livelihood, the group said.

One portion of the legislation will set up at least five centers in small forest communities dedicated to helping small businesses interested in performing forest restoration services on public lands and developing businesses that use the forest resources. The goal is to create a small-business-based economy that uses the forest sensibly and can still sustain itself.

Craig said his legislation will foster collaboration to help the forests and reduce the threat of wildfires, as well as ease the gridlock in land management decisions.

Mike Francis, who is in charge of forest programs for The Wilderness Society, said including the community in decisions is valuable, and the residents around the forest should be able to benefit from restoration projects. But national environmental laws need to guide those decisions, he said.

Tim Richard
Research and Communication
Office of Community Services
Fort Lewis College
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Durango, CO 81301
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