Field Experience for Students Also Provides Critical Assistance for Family Landowners in the Southern Appalachians
Location
Peavy/Richardson Halls
Event Website
http://uenr.forestry.oregonstate.edu/
Start Date
3-15-2008 11:00 AM
End Date
3-15-2008 11:30 AM
Description
The southern Appalachian region epitomizes changes in forest land ownership that have occurred throughout much of the US during recent decades. These changes include the divestiture of industrial forest lands, increased fragmentation, changing demographics, and a shift in management objectives to include nontraditional forest products. While there is broad consensus among Southern Appalachian landowners that sustainable forest management is desirable, there are relatively few examples to demonstrate how it can be applied at the scale of family lands. The Western Carolina Forest Sustainability Initiative (WCFSI) was formed in 2001 as a partnership between the Natural Resource Conservation and Management (NRCM) Program at Western Carolina University (WCU), local land trusts, and The Conservation Fund to promote sustainable forest management on family lands. The director of WCFSI is a NRCM faculty member and the workers employed by WCFSI are undergraduate forestry interns who work year-round designing and actually implementing sustainable forest management practices on non-industrial private forest lands. Students also have opportunities to work on WCFSI projects through coursework. The initiative has provided undergraduate students income and a wide range of hands-on plus “minds-on” experiences in the application of sustainable resource management practices, while also helping families manage their forest lands in an ecologically and economically sustainable way. This presentation will describe the WCFSI and will illustrate how the program achieves its learning outcomes for the students while also achieving sustainability outcomes for the landowners.
Field Experience for Students Also Provides Critical Assistance for Family Landowners in the Southern Appalachians
Peavy/Richardson Halls
The southern Appalachian region epitomizes changes in forest land ownership that have occurred throughout much of the US during recent decades. These changes include the divestiture of industrial forest lands, increased fragmentation, changing demographics, and a shift in management objectives to include nontraditional forest products. While there is broad consensus among Southern Appalachian landowners that sustainable forest management is desirable, there are relatively few examples to demonstrate how it can be applied at the scale of family lands. The Western Carolina Forest Sustainability Initiative (WCFSI) was formed in 2001 as a partnership between the Natural Resource Conservation and Management (NRCM) Program at Western Carolina University (WCU), local land trusts, and The Conservation Fund to promote sustainable forest management on family lands. The director of WCFSI is a NRCM faculty member and the workers employed by WCFSI are undergraduate forestry interns who work year-round designing and actually implementing sustainable forest management practices on non-industrial private forest lands. Students also have opportunities to work on WCFSI projects through coursework. The initiative has provided undergraduate students income and a wide range of hands-on plus “minds-on” experiences in the application of sustainable resource management practices, while also helping families manage their forest lands in an ecologically and economically sustainable way. This presentation will describe the WCFSI and will illustrate how the program achieves its learning outcomes for the students while also achieving sustainability outcomes for the landowners.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cuenr/7thBiennial/Sessions/18
Comments
Session #6: Experiential & Service Learning. Presentation for 7th Biennial Conference on University Education in Natural Resources, March 13-15, 2008, Corvallis, Oregon. Featured in the ScholarsArchive@OSU in Oregon State University. Suggested Citation: DeWald, L.E., Bates, P. 2008. Field experience for students also provides critical assistance for family landowners in the southern Appalachians. UENR 7th Biennial Conference, ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University. http://hdl.handle.net/1957/8332