SCIENCE-BASED
PROGRAMS & PROJECTS
 Programs
Much of the NFF’s project work, including
sustainable forestry and ecological restoration
of forests and watersheds, requires science that
is both useful and sound. In 2002, the NFF formed
a partnership with the National
Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry
(NCSSF), which is a results-oriented group
formed to provide practical information and approaches
that serve the needs of forest managers, practitioners
and policymakers. The purpose of this partnership
is to plan and oversee a multi-year program of
research, assessment and tool-development needed
to design, implement and evaluate sustainable
forestry practices in the U.S.
The NCSSF’s
mission is to improve the scientific basis for
the development, implementation and evaluation
of sustainable forestry in the United States.
Realizing that the NFF and the NCSSF
would make a strong partnership, in 2002 the NFF
and the NCSSF
signed a memorandum of understanding to formalize
the beginning of a partnership.
That year, the NFF made a grant of $500,000 to
the NCSSF,
which was matched by the Doris Duke Foundation.
The purpose of this funding was to initiate projects
focused on synthesizing existing scientific information
with applied science and disseminating that information
in a useful and productive way to forest practitioners.
The goals of the partnership have grown to include
increasing communication between researchers and
forest practitioners and developing useful ways
to measure the success of sustainable forestry
practices on improving and protecting biodiversity.
The commitment was renewed in 2003 with an additional
$500,000 investment.
In 2003, a diverse group of field practitioners,
researchers, forest managers and forest policymakers
met in Washington, DC, to discuss ways they might
begin to more efficiently link research with practice.
The meeting included representatives from both
the NFF and the NCSSF
along with private lands forest managers, state
and federal land managers and community interest
group leaders.
Forestry professionals at the workshop expressed
a need for synthesizing biodiversity and sustainability
indicators that take into consideration the dynamic
nature of forest stands and resources; evaluating
best management practices and their effectiveness
in real world situations; and, developing a comprehensive
inventory of the data and tools available to forestry
professionals.
Read a summary document about the April 2003 Meeting
by clicking
here (PDF).
Projects
In spring 2002, six organizations joined forces
to address the lack of useful information on monitoring
projects specific to ponderosa pine forest restoration
projects. The six sponsoring organizations, including
the National Forest Foundation, the USDA Forest
Service - Collaborative Forest Restoration Program,
the Ecological Restoration Institute, the Four
Corners Institute, the Pinchot Institute for Conservation
and the Forest Trust, led the process necessary
to generate a framework and guidelines on how
a diverse collection of groups can monitor and
assess the success of forest restoration projects.
To read the executive summary of this monitoring
report, click
here. To download the full report as a 478K
PDF, click
here. |
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