Presentation 2.2: Opportunities Realized Through Interface Forest Management

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Presentation 2.2Opportunities Realized Through
Interface Forest Management
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Outline

• Introduction
• Interface management products
• Variety of products besides timber
• Timber can pay for further management of the land
• Challenges to multi-managing the land
• Summary

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Introduction

• Avoid timber versus nontimber
• Income generation is just one of many
  opportunities available on interface forests
• Timber harvesting is compatible with many other
  forest products and can help pay for management
  needed to provide these products

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Multiple objectives

• Variety of reasons to manage the land
• Income generation
• Fire risk reduction
• Amenity resources
• Forest health
• Wildlife
• Water management

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Alternative forest products

• Decorative
• Herbal
• Medicinal
• Edible
• Enhance property value

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Nontimber forest industry

• Business venture
• Marketing nontimber forest products website
• http//www.sfp.forprod.vt.edu/special_fp.htm
• Poaching

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Timber and pulp income

• Longer rotation ages
• Processed timber
• Forest certification
• Christmas trees
• Biomass

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Property value

• Universal technique used to value tree
• Increase or decrease based on the trees

Aggregating across the South, the total
compensation value for residential trees
approaches one trillion dollars.
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Conversion harvests

• Increased amenity values on residential property
• Facilitate silvicultural management
• Aesthetic trees increase property value

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Tourism income

• Hunting leases
• ATV trails
• Wildlife viewing areas
• Eco-tourism
• Bed and breakfast lodging
• Hiking
• Retreats

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Liability and Marketing

• Liability is an issue if people are invited on
  property
• Avoid negligence
• Obtain liability insurance
• Successful business requires planning
• Understand customer
• Understand competition
• Develop marketing plan

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Exercise 2.5Interface Moneymakers
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Exercise 2.5 Discussion Questions

• What resources and information should your agency
  provide to encourage successful ventures?
• What perceptions and constraints are barriers to
  landowners launching these enterprises?
• Marketing and liability concerns are important to
  any successful business. Do you have examples of
  landowners that have successfully addressed these
  concerns?

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Challenge of managing WUI fire

• Common in southern ecosystems
• South has most fire starts and acres burned
• Objections to interface fire include
• concerns about forest aesthetics and forest
  health
• concerns about safety of structures
• access and responsibility
• negative impacts of smoke on human health and
  driving safety

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Firewise solutions

• Firewise communities
• Large fire breaks (golf courses, farms)
• Firewise structures
• Nonflammable material, gutters, windows,
  driveways
• Firewise landscaping around structures
• Lean, clean, green

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Firewise plant characteristics

• High moisture content
• Broad and thick leaves
• Low chemical content
• Open and loose branching patterns
• Deciduousness
• Low amounts of dead materials

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Plants to avoid in defensible space

• Saw palmetto
• accumulate dead leaves (fronds)
• Juniper
• resins in leaves and branches
• Mountain laurel
• dense leaves and branches close to ground

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Fuel reduction

• Mechanical thinning
• Herbicides
• Prescribed burning
• Animal grazing

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Exercise 2.6Firewise Conversations
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Exercise 2.13Juggling Multiple Objectives
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Case Study 21Wildfire Preparedness in
Mississippi
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Case Study 11Life on the Edge Interface Issues
in Bastrop, Texas
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Amenity resources

• Scenery
• Trails
• Privacy
• Shade
• Typically the MOST important
• product of interface forests

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Scenery sells

• Park-like stands with large trees and low ground
  cover
• Low or no downed wood, trash, waste
• Open vistas and meadows
• Thinning creates depth of view, larger trees
• Ephemeral features

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Naturalness

• Value natural appearances
• Minimize human intervention
• Careful design

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Picnic, park, and camp

• Soil compaction kills older, sensitive trees
• Use young, deep rooted trees
• Parking lots
• should drain away from water source
• or have a swale to hold water and allow
  pollutants to settle

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Trail creation

• Add loops
• Create diversity
• One-way traffic
• Single entry point
• Interconnected
• Plan skid and logging roads to become trails
• Consider use conflicts

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Trail building considerations

• Soils
• Trail size
• Trail grade
• Trail alignment
• Streams, lakes and trails

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Privacy and Shade

• Vegetation visual buffers
• Vegetation performs poorly as an acoustic buffers
  
• Shade can significantly reduce
• temperature (10-15 degrees)
• cooling costs (10-80)
• Shade can direct/block cooling breezes

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Regional amenity

• Visual character of a region
• Transformation of lands
• Visitor perceptions
• Recreational activities

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Practicing visible stewardship

• Public perception
• Visual screening
• Cues-to-care
• Forest management
• Environmental impacts
• Terminology

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Cues-to-care

• Waste and damage
• Neatness
• Schedule and duration
• Planning and safety
• Communication
• Re-vegetation
• Appearances
• Community commitment

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Screen/hide management

• Add visual buffers
• Keep aesthetics in mind
• Limit downed wood
• May create negative perceptions
• Communicate with the public

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Exercise 2.7Scenery and Trails
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Exercise 2.7 Discussion Questions

• Which suggested aesthetic timber harvesting
  techniques are most feasible? Why?
• Which techniques are least feasible? Why?
• Which techniques are least costly? Why?
• In addition to laying out skid trails and logging
  roads with a future trail system in mind, what
  other work is needed to finish a trail system?
• What other techniques exist to increase scenery
  and trails in the wildland-urban interface?

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Forest health

• Historically narrow in scope
• Expansion of definition
• Influenced by people
• Investment
• Environmental safety
• Personal opinion and values
• Experience is the key

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Site management

• Construction damage
• Roots and stems
• Toxic chemicals
• Tree-friendliness
• Species selection
• Nursery personnel

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Insects and diseases

• Bark beetle and wood borers
• Defoliating insects
• Sap-feeding insects
• Girdling insects
• Canker diseases
• Tree decline
• Leaf diseases

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Abiotic factors and invasives

• Abiotic factors
• Lightning strikes
• Drought
• Flooding
• Invasive plants
• Kudzu
• Invasive animals
• Coyote
• Armadillo
• Nuisance animals

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Exercise 2.8Promoting Forest Health
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Case Study 1The Challenge of Controversial
Resource Issues Southern Pine Beetle
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Wildlife

• Approximately 87 million people participate in
  wildlife-associated activities each year
• Approximately 108 billion is spent on these
  activities per year
• Managing for wildlife is a challenge due to
• forest fragmentation
• development
• landowners opinion about wildlife

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Effects of human expansion

• What are the likely effects of expanding
  human populations, urbanization, and
  infrastructure on wildlife and their habitats?
• Non-native species threaten the survival of some
  sensitive wildlife species.
• Urban and agricultural land uses have created
  forest islands.
• Disturbed areas facilitate the spread of
  non-native species.

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Human-wildlife conflicts

• Vectors for disease
• Lyme disease
• West Nile virus
• Car accidents
• Property damage
• Control strategies
• Species diversity

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Managing nuisance wildlife

• Human-wildlife conflicts
• Exclusion
• Habitat modification
• Repellents
• Toxic baits and pesticides
• Glue boards and traps
• Scare tactics

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Attracting wildlife

• Put up feeders and houses
• Remove invasive exotics
• Manage household pets
• Reduce pesticide use
• Expand scale of habitat

• Limit amount of lawn
• Increase vertical layering
• Leave snags and brush piles
• Provide water source
• Plant native vegetation

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Exercise 2.9Wild Stories
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Case Study 4Deer Debate in Hilton Head, South
Carolina
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Effects of urbanization on the water cycle

• Forests intercept precipitation.
• Approximately 2/3 of incoming precipitation is
  released back into the atmosphere.
• Remaining water recharges the groundwater and
  contributes to streams.
• Forest clearing generates more storm-water
  runoff, reduces amount of water that soaks into
  the ground.

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Strategies to minimize threats

• Watershed management plan
• Forest protection
• Land acquisition
• Conservation easements
• Reduction of impervious cover
• Minimize paved surfaces
• Clustering development

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Control of pollutant sources

• Limit fertilizer application
• Community programs
• Demonstration gardens
• Improve the treatment of wastewater
• Septic systems
• Management tools

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Storm-water management

• Best management practices (BMPs)
• Detention ponds
• Low impact development (LID) practices
• Treat water where it falls
• Vegetated rooftops
• New methods to convey water
• Implementation obstacles
• Steep slopes
• Impacted soils
• Shallow water

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Case Study 19Treasuring Forests in Alabama
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Summary

• Understanding the variety of opportunities,
  values, and ecosystem services that interface
  forest management provides is key to developing a
  positive relationship with landowners.

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Credits

• Photos
• Slide 5, 7, 10, 26, 27, 28, 32 Virginia Tech
• Slide 6, 8, 9, 15, 23, 31, 36, 39, 50 Larry
  Korhnak
• Slide 16 Bobby Dean, http//www.archives.state.al
  .us/emblems/wild_flow.html
• Slide 17 Chris Evans, The University of Georgia,
  www.forestryimages.org
• Slide 37 James Solomon, USDA Forest Service,
  www.forestryimages.org
• Slide 38 Ronald F. Billings, Texas Forest
  Service, www.forestryimages.org
• References
• Slide 8 Nowak, D. J. D. E. Crane and J. F.
  Dwyer. 2002. Compensatory Value of Urban Trees
  in the United States. Journal of Arboriculture
  28(4) 194-199.

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Credits

• References
• Slide 16, 17Behm, A. A. Long M. C. Monroe C.
  Randall W. Zipperer and A. Hermansen-Baez.
  2004. Fire in the Wildland-Urban Interface
  Preparing a Firewise Plant List for WUI Residents
  (Circular 1453). Gainesville FL University of
  Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural
  Sciences, Florida Cooperative Extension Service,
  School of Forest Resources and Conservation.
• Slide 42 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S.
  Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau.2002.
  2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and
  Wildlife-Associated Recreation 2-6, 37-51.
• Slide 43 Wear, D. and J. Greis. 2002. The
  Southern Forest Resource Assessment Summary
  Report (Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-54). Asheville NC
  USDA, Forest Service, Southern Research Station.
• Slide 46 Hostetler, M. E. G. Klowden S. W.
  Miller and K. N. Youngentob. 2003. Landscaping
  Backyards for Wildlife Top Ten Tips for Success
  (Circular 1429).