Growth Rings:Communitiesand Trees
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Growth Rings: Communities and Trees Growth Rings:Communitiesand Growth Rings: THE ASPEN INSTITUTE Communities and Trees Lessons from the Ford Foundation Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program, 2000–2 THE ASPEN INSTITUTE THE ASPEN INSTITUTE One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036 www.aspeninstitute.org The National Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program was an initiative of the Ford Foundation, Photography: assisted by the Aspen Institute, Cover: Robert Donnan (top); Anne Carpenter (bottom) the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Text: All photography by Robert Donnan except the following: Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters—page 71 (#1) the Institute for Policy Research and Ann Carpenter—pages 1 (#1, 5, 7); 119 (#1, 4, 6); 143 (#6); 193 (#5); 221 (#3, 6) Evaluation at Pennsylvania State Oshana Catranides/Marko Bey—page 159 (#8) Wayne Fitzpatrick—page 99 (#1) University, Colorado State University, Makah Tribal Forestry—pages 21 (#7); 41 (#2); 99 (#2); 143 (#5); 185 (#4) and 13 demonstration sites. Vicky Sturtevant—pages 1 (#2); 143 (#1, 8); 185 (#2, 6); 193 (#3, 7) Kim Ziegelmayer—page 1 (#4) This publication was made possible by Design: funding from the Ford Foundation. Betsy Rubinstein, InForm Growth Rings: THE ASPEN INSTITUTE Communities and Trees Lessons from the Ford Foundation Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program, 2000-2005 by Barbara Wyckoff-Baird with the 13 Demonstration Sites Copyright 2005 by the Aspen Institute. The opinions expressed in this book reflect those of the authors and not the positions of either the Aspen Institute or the Ford Foundation. The Aspen Institute welcomes the quotation or use of material from this book in publications or for other professional purposes. However, we do ask that the Aspen Institute be notified through [email protected] and that proper credit be given. The Aspen Institute One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20036 Phone: (202) 736-5800 Fax: (202) 293-0525 www.aspeninstitute.org Printed on recycled paper iii Table of Contents This document presents many findings and lessons harvested over the past five years throughout implementation of the Ford Foundation National Community- Based Forestry (CBF) Demonstration Program. This “users guide” is intended to help you, the reader, navigate its contents — specifically, to hone in on the lessons that are especially relevant for your own community and to take this document not as a detailed blueprint for success, but for the guide and toolbox it is intended to be. Summaries of each chapter are presented below. Foreword . vii Preface. xiii Acknowledgments . xvii Chapter 1: Introduction . .1 Across a wide variety of settings, resourceful residents have developed a working framework that integrates many fundamental aspects of CBF. Chief among these principles are an emphasis upon community influence over local natural resources, including ecosystem management; a commitment to include as many local residents as possible in decision making and implementation of forest activities; and the idea that the well-managed forest can support sustainable livelihoods for rural communities. This section includes descriptions of CBF and asset-based community development; a working framework for CBF; a brief outline of how CBF has evolved in the United States, including the dynamics of the mobile workforce; and a description of the Ford Foundation, the National CBF Demonstration Program, and the 13 participating sites. Chapter 2: Foundations of Community-Based Forestry. 21 This chapter presents a set of overarching lessons drawn from the participating sites’ experiences with community-based forestry. As such, the lessons are essential to understanding how best to go about designing and implementing an integrated CBF program. In fact, it will be helpful to review these broad lessons carefully before reading the later chapters, if only to allow the reader to situate those forthcoming specific lessons more comfortably within this larger framework. Lessons include the importance of building community, using an integrated approach, some keys to effective implementation, and critical elements to ensuring broader, long-term impacts. (continued on next page) Table of Contents iv Chapter 3: Building Just and Resilient Communities . 41 CBF recognizes not only the mutual interdependence of forests and people, but emphasizes that each in its own way must exhibit diversity, resilience, and long-term sustainability. Every CBF project encourages local people to ask themselves probing questions about how their communities actually function: Who actually participates in decision making about devising and implementing these projects? How do they plan to make use of local traditions and local knowledge? And, perhaps most importantly of all, who actually benefits, and who is left out? This section contains lessons for community-based organizations (CBOs), including cultivating the values of CBF, increasing the community’s capacity to undertake CBF, and describing roles and operating principles for CBOs as they work to build just and resilient communities. Chapter 4: Fostering Sustainable Economies. 71 This chapter explores what has been learned about building an economic strategy based on natural resources and how that work can be more accurately assessed. This section offers lessons about asset management, small business networks, business basics, markets, and the role of the CBO. Chapter 5: Restoring and Maintaining Forest Ecosystems . 99 As it has evolved among contemporary CBF practitioners, this stewardship ethic most often focuses upon how best to implement an integrated, whole- system approach to ecosystem management, with a particular emphasis on forest restoration. These forest restoration efforts are ongoing, long- term, and uniquely adapted to address the complex needs of their specific environments. Most are today just in their beginning stages. As such, their vision of comprehensive, sustainable restoration will take many years to fulfill. This section offers lessons about ecosystem monitoring, tools and approaches for promoting forest restoration and ecologically sound practices, and taking projects to a landscape scale. Chapter 6: Collaborating for CBF Action . .119 CBF’s ability to bridge seemingly intractable differences among stakeholders and forge innovative, productive new collaborative partnerships has been perhaps the strongest impetus for its recent emergence in the United States. More than a decade later, CBF has helped to heal some of the divisiveness that exists regarding forest management issues on federal lands. It also has helped to create landscape-scale approaches to managing forests on private lands, as well as to widen the circle of stakeholders who have access to the benefits. This section includes a description of the many reasons to collaborate and the benefits of such collaboration, as well as lessons about design tips and essential ingredients for partnerships, strategic roles different organizations can play, and institutional barriers within the U.S. Forest Service. The Aspen Institute Growth Rings: Communities and Trees v Chapter 7: Implementing CBF through Community-Based Organizations . .143 The Demonstration Program made grants to CBOs in almost every region of the country. Some of these organizations were well established, while others were newly emerging. Organizations with existing missions that served private landowners saw CBF as another possible tool for their clients, so they developed CBF programs within their organizations to serve them. These organizations learned about CBF as they introduced the concepts to the community. For other organizations, CBF was their heart and soul, having emerged in response to the threats posed by changing forest management practices on the neighboring public lands. Still other groups evolved as membership-based. This section includes lessons on governance, structure, operations, staffing, and skills as learned from this broad range of experiences. Chapter 8: Designing and Supporting CBF Programs . 159 This chapter examines and provides lessons on three components of designing and supporting CBF programs — grantmaking; use of a managing partner, including peer learning, technical assistance, and communications with the funder; and conducting research to test assumptions, build knowledge, and advance the understanding and practice of CBF more broadly in the United States. Chapter 9: Building on the Past, Creating the Future . .185 More than five years have passed since the beginning of the Demonstration Program. As it draws to a close, it is timely to ask whether the CBF strategies it explored are making a significant difference. Have these pilot experiments lived up to early expectations about their likely outcomes? What has been learned that might encourage or instruct other communities as they proceed with their own CBF initiatives? What can be said about CBF’s prospects over the long term? Appendix A: Descriptions of the 13 Demonstration Program Sites . .193 Appendix B: Digital Archive and Toolbox on Accompanying Compact Disk . .221 A directory of the compact disk (CD) accompanying this book, which includes tools discussed in the text, useful websites, and publications of the Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program. Table of Contents vii Foreword he relationship between people products, and tap into markets. To qualify and the environment is one as true community assets, decision making T of the defining