Websites for Information about Grants

http://southwestareagrants.org

A website designed and developed to help explain the types of federal and state assistance grants available in the Southwestern Region (Arizona and New Mexico), what they can be used for, the eligibility requirements, the contact points and the websites for the various grants.

http://www.redlodgeclearinghouse.org

The mission of the Red Lodge Clearinghouse is to support, nurture and connect collaborative natural resource groups. From the homepage of this website, go to "Collaboration Resources" and click on "Funding". This page provides a searchable listing of funding sources supporting collaborative approaches to natural resource management (sources are still being added).

New Community Research Projects

The Research Center and the San Carlos Apache Forestry Department are developing a research project focused on engaging the community in forest management decisions. The San Carlos Forestry Department manages urban forests, woodlands, and forests. The Forestry Department will use information gathered by a research project to expand their community forestry program. The Research Center will work with a local cooperator to create and conduct a survey of current perceptions and interests related to forest and woodland management.

Las Humanas, a community-based organization in Manzano, NM, is interested in documenting the location of culturally important plants in areas receiving fuel reduction treatments. Traditional plants have not been specifically inventoried as part of annual monitoring until this past August. Through collecting information and engaging elders in the community, Las Humanas hopes to pass on the knowledge of traditional herbs to younger members of the community. Traditional plants have long been used in the Manzano Land Grant community for medicinal, spiritual, and nutritional reasons. This project is intended to help keep this tradition alive.

Monitoring Resources

The Research Center has partnered with the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University and the Four Corner’s Institute in Santa Fe to provide monitoring technical assistance to Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) grant recipients. Six handbooks have been developed to cover the following topics:

Handbook 1 - What is multiparty monitoring?
Handbook 2 - Developing a multiparty monitoring plan
Handbook 3 - Creative budgeting for monitoring projects
Handbook 4 - Monitoring ecological effects
Handbook 5 - Monitoring social and economic effects
Handbook 6 - Analyzing and interpreting monitoring data

The Research Center will work with anyone in the Southwest region to assist with community-based monitoring, regardless of whether they are CFRP grant recipients.

New Fire Information Website at Northern Arizona University

is now online at http://forestfire.nau.edu. Created by the Program in Community, Culture and Environment at Northern Arizona University, this website is an organized gateway to the vast amount of fire information available on the Internet and elsewhere.

Research Topics now available in PDF

A research topics list is now available in PDF format from the Southwest
Community Forestry, Download Publications page.

Cooperator Profiles

Every few months, the Research Center will profile someone it works with in the rural Southwest:

1. Kim Torgerson, a logger and mill operator in Southern Utah
2. Emily LaJeunesse, a youth from Mountainair, New Mexico, who worked on a community mapping project.
3. Elisha Blea, a youth from Mountainair, New Mexico, who worked on a mapping project with Las Humanas
4. Nikki Cooley, from Shonto, Arizona, who has worked with Indigenous Community Enterprises, in Flagstaff, Arizona
5. Rex Shepperd, from Creede, Colorado
   

Working Papers, Free to Southwest Residents

Please call us at 1-800-803-0025 or email melinda@theforesttrust.org if you are interested in receiving any of the publications below for which there is no download link shown. If you do not live in the southwest region, these publications are available for the cost of copying and shipping.

Working Paper 1
Good Wood: The Story of the Forest Trust's Wood Products Brokerage
Between 1990-98, the Forest Trust operated a wood products brokerage to improve economic conditions in northern New Mexico. The brokerage linked rural wood products businesses with urban clientele and promoted both environmentally sound harvesting practices and locally produced wood products. The Good Wood story describes the background, creation, evolution, and eventual dissolution of Good Wood, Inc. from the viewpoints of local woodworkers, urban construction contractors, the Forest Trust, and foundations that supported the program.

Working Paper 2
The Effects of Fuel Management on Fire Behavior in Ponderosa Pine: The Status of our Knowledge
This paper assesses existing research on the effectiveness of hazardous fuel reduction in changing wildfire behavior. The authors review more than 250 papers that evaluate three types of fuel treatment in relation to fire behavior in western forests: prescribed fire, mechanical thinning, and a combination of thinning and burning. The authors also survey the literature to evaluate recent suggestions by policy makers that commercial logging can be used to treat dense forest fuels. The paper focuses on ponderosa pine forest types. Where relevant, studies located in other forest types are also included in the discussion.

Working Paper 3
Annotated Bibliography: Fuel Treatments and Fire Behavior
This annotated bibliography reviews research on the relationship between fuel loads and fire behavior, primarily in western forests. References which do not provide new information or original research are described only briefly. This and other bibliographies are also available in pdf format on the web at www.theforesttrust.org/swdownload.html

Working Paper 4
Distribution of Timber Sales on Northern New Mexico National Forests 1992-1999: Are Small and Medium Sized Businesses Getting Their Share?
This report analyzes the extent that the Forest Service is meeting its commitment to local communities, by looking at volume distributions among primary stakeholders from 1992-1999. The patterns of the data indicate certain trends, which reflect the individual policies and actions of the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests.

Working Paper 5
Community Monitoring for Restoration Projects in Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests
This manual describes methods communities may use to assess changes in 18 vegetation and soil variables that may be affected by restoration treatments in ponderosa pine forests. The monitoring design used in this manual is effectiveness monitoring, which evaluates the success of the restoration goals of the treatments. The methods are inexpensive and easy to use.

Working Paper 6
The Use of Biomass Energy from Hazardous Fuel Reduction Projects
This paper compiles information and perspectives about the use of biomass energy from hazardous fuel reduction projects. Section I contains information about biomass energy from the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory. Section II presents national, local, and environmental perspectives on biomass energy use and implementation, and Section III provides information sources and contacts from the biomass-to-energy field.

Working Paper 7
Distribution of Timber Sales on Dixie and Fishlake National Forests, 1985-2001
This participatory research project analyzes timber sales on two national forests in southern Utah. The study compares volume and value of sales offered to small business (<15 people), medium businesses (15-60 people), and large businesses (>60 people) over the past 15 years.

Working Paper 8
An Evaluation of Fuel Reduction Projects in the Eastern Cibola National Forest: Mapping as Monitoring.
The paper presents an analysis of a mapping project initiated by Las Humanas Cooperative in the Manzano Mountains of New Mexico. Mapping was used as a tool to evaluate how funds were being distributed for defensible space creation, fuels reduction and small diameter wood utilization in the East and Manzano Mountains in New Mexico. These results are compared to socioeconomic variables such as population, poverty and median income.

Working Paper 12
Distribution of Timber Sales on the Manti-LaSal National Forest, 1985-2001: A Participatory Research Project by Southern Utah Forest Products Association
This participatory research project analyzes timber sales on the Manti-LaSal National Forest in southern Utah. As in Working Paper 7, which analyzed sales on the Dixie and Fishlake National Forests, the study compares volume and value of sales offered to small business (<15 people), medium businesses (15-60 people), and large businesses (>60 people) over the past 15 years.