5th Anniversary Outreach: Results and Challenges

Even young organizations need to use milestones as vehicles to consider and assess progress.  That’s just what the Board and staff of the Endowment did with the achievement of five years as an organization.  At its November 2011 meeting, the Board approved an intentional plan to “reach out to interested publics” to share the Endowment’s progress and to seek input as we move into the next five years.

Organizational Input
Among the primary tools the staff developed to enhance awareness and solicit input was a special program that provided an overview of the Endowment’s progress and programmatic investments over its first five years.  We used that presentation to speak to and solicit input from nearly a dozen organizations ranging from the California Board of Registered Foresters to the Professional Agricultural Workers Conference.  Each presentation was designed to provide a high-level Endowment overview followed by an open discussion/input session.

Knowing that there were significant limits to our ability to share this opportunity with anywhere near all of the groups and organizations we desired to reach, we augmented the outreach/input tool to include an on-line survey open to anyone.

Findings
Perhaps we fell prey to hearing what we wanted to hear.  We hope not.  In short, when each group better understood the Endowment’s mission – to advance healthy working forests and family-supporting jobs in rural forest-reliant communities – and that we had to do so only using interest and earnings from the endowment corpus, we found strong support and alignment with our approach.  There were strong kudos for choosing to “do what others can’t or won’t” and to “focus on a few big ideas; rather than being lured by trying to be all things to all people.”

Yes, there were some criticisms and suggestions that we weren’t focusing where the commenter thought we should.  While this list was far shorter than the accolades, we do not discount its importance.  Among the more frequent comments were:  the Endowment should focus on educating the public about the importance of forests and the need for their protection/management; target family forest owners to ensure that they are giving proper attention to long-term stewardship; and do more to address America’s forest health crisis with special attention to sustainable management of the public lands.


To everyone at each of our public sessions or who took the time to provide an online response, you have our appreciation.  We know that we – the Endowment Board and staff – have been given a rare opportunity and even bigger responsibility.  As the largest public charity in America working to advance the cause of forest sustainability and rural-forest health, the challenges are indeed large.  Our funds, while large by historical perspective, pale by any comparison with foundations working on other issues to see the billions of dollars and thousands of staff members allocated to the challenge.

We have a choice.  We can bemoan the fact that we don’t have enough funds to do all that we know we should/wish we could be doing, or, we can do the very best with what we have.  We’ve chosen the latter course.  We look forward to your continued input as we make the journey and as we adjust the tools and course headings along the way.

Written by: Carlton Owen

Wood-to-Energy: A Part of America’s Energy Future

The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection

Lexus automobile with its commercials touting its commitment to “the relentless pursuit of perfection” may lead us to believe that perfection is just a tweak or new gadget away.  Look more deeply.  See the little hedge word there?  Pursuit.  That’s the same caveat that the founding fathers’ placed in the Bill of Rights that accompanied our beloved Constitution.  Recall that American’s are not guaranteed happiness; rather, we have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

Happiness or the pursuit of it…that’s a big difference!  It’s this kind of deep thinking that had me considering another famous quote – “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”  Although not a student of world history and literature – thus one reason I won’t make a good Jeopardy! contestant -- I have often been drawn to the quote attributed to Francois-Marie Arouet, a French writer, dentist, and philosopher.  You might know him more commonly as Voltaire (his pen name).

Combining writing, dental, and philosophical thinking and skill would, one might expect, yield eclectic if not break-through thinking.  In Voltarie’s case it clearly resulted in magical output. 

Pursuit vs. Reality
While I’m a big believer in that we should “shoot high” and “dream big,” if perfection is our only objective, we likely will spend most of our time in bitter disappointment.  In reality, there are very few things in life where perfection is even the proper objective.  Things like ensuring that a space capsule re-enters Earth’s atmosphere at the “perfect angle” might be among them.  The difference between perfect and good enough in that instance is truly life or death.

But, most of our decisions and most of our processes aren’t that exacting.  All of this thinking has to do with the vitriolic debate going on across America as we seek to move to a “better, more perfect place” as goes our energy production.  As we look back on the all-too-fast retreat of the 20^th Century, we see the age of fossil fuels – one where oil, coal, and natural gas allowed unprecedented development and movement but as we know now, with some not insignificant downsides (movement of America’s wealth to other not-so-friendly parts of the world and climate change, among them).

Playing to Strengths
We spent more than a century developing and deploying fossil fuels.  With trillions in infrastructure investment, the shift to alternatives won’t come fast nor will it be simple.  In short, we will have to go to increasingly more complicated sources of power and fuel production that the Southern Growth Policies Board in a 2009 reports says will “be highly diversified to address energy needs and capitalize on the unique resources of different regions.  Each location needs to play to its strengths.  This means that areas will need to develop their systems somewhat autonomous from the greater whole because there is a wide diversity of circumstances that affect the efficient production of energy. For example, wind power does best where windy conditions are prevalent, like in the U.S. Northern Plains, solar power does best at southern latitudes with little cloud cover throughout the year like in the U.S. Southwest, while wood-based energy does best where there are productive and abundant forests.” 

Finding Acceptable Options
One of the conundrums in making the shift to suitable and acceptable alternatives is that no alternative is perfect.  But, we must recall that the fuels we wish to shift from are not perfect either.  The Endowment operates from a forest-centric perspective.  One-third of America’s landscape is blanketed with trees.  If we wish to keep those lands in forests, where they are privately-owned (the bulk of all forests), we need to provide markets and economic opportunity.  Where forests are publicly held (exempting statutory wilderness, where nature is allowed to take its course) we need markets that provide economically-viable tools to maintain forest health.

We believe that wood-to-energy is one tool that can help achieve multiple objectives.  It can help keep forests as forests, ensure their health, provide rural family-supporting jobs, and all the while , in the appropriate places and at the appropriate scales, do so while providing just a small sliver of the answer to America’s and the world’s future renewable energy needs.

To expect wood-to-energy to be “perfect” – to have zero emissions and impacts – is ludicrous.  Society must weigh all alternative energy options and not wait for the never-to-be-achieved perfection as we test and develop acceptable alternatives.  We need to make progress toward a brighter and healthier future for forests and for the people who steward as well as those who benefit from them.

Written by: Carlton Owen 

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

All children play the game.  “What do you what to be when they grow up?”  Whether the question comes from their peers or well-meaning adults, it’s standard fare.  For boys it’s often, “I want to be a fireman or a policeman.”  For girls perhaps it is “teacher or nurse.”  The reality is at those young ages, few have anything upon which to base such dreams. 

As we do grow up and perhaps for all-too-many, it’s when high school or college graduation goes from being something “out there” to eminent, we start getting more serious about the answer.

Influences toward a Career Path
For me, a 9^th grade biology teacher provided.  Because of my love for nature and the out-of-doors, she said, “You should go into forestry.”  With no personal mentors or connections to the field, that settled it.  En route I had many different part-time jobs … from sales clerk, to factory work building mobile homes, to mowing yard … yet, all served to ensure one thing – I would be college bound and would pursue forestry.

Once in college and as I gained a bit more understanding of the field, I began to hone the vision a bit more.  The image of forest wildlife biologist began to emerge.  With two degrees – one in forestry, the other in wildlife ecology – under my belt, I set out to make my mark.  Thirty-five years later I’m still in the broad forestry/wildlife field, but in a job (heading a national endowment) that was never on the radar.

Lumberjack:  The Worst Job in America?
Why this walk down memory lane?  Today, Careercast.com announced its “200 best and worst jobs” in America.  At the top is software engineer and at the bottom is the lumberjack, which the study defines as “fells, cuts, and transports timber to be processed into lumber, paper and other wood products.”  While I’m having a bit of trouble differing between “fells and cuts,” the jest is, timber harvesting is hard and dangerous work.  Duh!

By the way, I find that I can be listed as either 27^th – biologists; or 188^th – conservationists.  Forester didn’t even make the list.  Is that to suggest that it isn’t a job or it didn’t even make the top 200?

The Future for Lumberjacks
I haven’t heard the term lumberjacks since I lived in the small town of Warren, Arkansas, where the local high school football team had as its mascot the “Lumberjacks.”  Am I surprised that it ranked so low?  Well no; and yes.

Without timber harvesters we wouldn’t have the myriad of lumber, paper, and biomass-based products that make our lives better.  Today there are estimated to be some 8-10 thousand independent firms that harvest and transport timber in the U.S.  While most are small businesses, when we multiply each firm by its number of employees, the total sector would rank in the tens of thousands of employees.

At the Endowment we’ve long been concerned about the financial health and survival of the nation’s loggers.  In fact, one of our very first efforts was to assess the state of the nation’s timber harvesting sector.  While we were unable to turn that assessment into a specific plan of action at that time, we continue to speak with and look for the right entry point to aid this vitally important part of the forest products value chain such that it might evolve for a brighter future.

In fact, over just the last six months we’ve met with timber harvesters (lumberjacks, loggers, etc.) from across the nation to explore specific actions that we could take together.  Our hope is that such will turn into tangible outcomes that will ensure that “lumberjacks” will be around for decades to come but that in future ratings that the job won’t be listed at the bottom of the pile.

Written by: Carlton Owen 

American Timber Harvesters: A Dying Breed?

Last weekend we had the privilege of meeting with the principals of about thirty timber harvesting firms from across America.  The group was meeting in Washington, D.C., where their association staff executive granted the Endowment the opportunity to visit with them about the future of this critical link in the forestry sector value chain.

Does Profitability Make a Difference?
In preparing for the meeting, we reviewed the results of a recent survey conducted by Timber Harvesting Magazine.  The study looked at the profitability of timber harvesting businesses across the U.S.  While the results might not pass academic muster for scientific purposes, the results were no less telling. 

For the calendar year 2010, on a “pre-tax” basis, more than one-half of all firms reported either losing money or at best breaking even.  When those making less than a 10% return on their investment – something few would consider a “get-rich-quick scheme” or much less enough to provide a healthy financial foundation -- the number skyrocketed to fully 94% of all firms.

Lest you think this was a tiny sample, more than 800 firms from 39 states responded to the survey.  Based on the best available information, that’s roughly 10% of the entire sector.  And, 2011 was likely even more economically challenging!

Should You Care about the Plight of Loggers?
Why should we at the Endowment – and you, if you care about healthy forests – be concerned about timber harvesting businesses?  The answer to that question has many parts.  First, without a robust and financially-sound logging sector, how can one “manage” forests?  Without harvesters how will America’s sawmills, pulp & paper mills, and growing number of wood-to-energy facilities, get wood from the forest to a conversion facility?  When landowners need to thin a forest to ensure that it is more resilient, healthy, and resistant to insects, diseases, and wildlife, how is such to be achieved without a market for the wood and a means to harvest the desired material?

An often stated truth is that the lion’s share of American forest landowners sadly don’t avail themselves of the service of a forester when they decide to conduct a timber sale.  Yet, 10 of 10 landowners do call on a logger.  That’s a powerful and critical connection that offers tremendous value if society could better capture it.

Forest Management Requires an “Axe”
All-too-often we who are concerned about America’s forests have viewed loggers as there when they are needed.  Something that can be “turned on” or “turned off” as needed.  Even worse, many look at them as necessary evils.  Such thinking has led to literally thousands of small businesses approaching the brink of economic disaster.  Aldo Leopold, a forester called the “father of American wildlife management,” said the “axe” is necessary to manage forests.  Few of us are trained or equipped to “deploy” that axe ourselves.

We may find, albeit too late, that without a professional, well-trained, well-equipped, and financially-sound timber harvesting sector, America’s forests and Americans who care about them are the ultimate losers. 

More later on what we at the Endowment are doing to try and create a brighter future.

24 Hours, 24 Ways Forestry Improves Our Lives

The following story comes from Craig Rawlings at the Forest Business Network. The Endowment has collaborated with The Conservation Fund's ShadeFund, the Forest Guild, Dovetail Partners, and the Pinchot Institute for Conservation to create this list of "24 Ways Forestry Improves Our Everyday Lives." Check out the list and dig a little deeper with links to videos, reports, and fact sheets. 


Today is no ordinary Wednesday. In 1971, the 23rd General Assembly of the European Confederation of Agriculture gave birth to the idea that we should designate one day around the world to celebrate the world’s forest and all that they offer for “protection, production, and recreation.” The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation agreed that this could help grow public awareness of forests around the world and officially made March 21 of each year ‘World Forestry Day.’

Forestry…

1. Produces products that are both safe and sturdy

With proper design and maintenance, wood products are some of the most durable and safe on the market. Resistant in instances of high humidity, tough to break, and minimally processed, wood surpasses many other raw materials as the safest and sturdiest choice for everything from our homes to our children’s toys.

2. Produces products that can be recycled and are also biodegradable, and thus do not clog our landfills for generations.

3. Helps improve air quality

Better air quality means better health and lower spending on healthcare. Tree cover in Washington, DC saves $51 million in healthcare costs each year.

4. Helps sequester carbon from the atmosphere

• Carbon is stored in the forest as trees grow.
• Carbon is also stored in the wood products we use in our homes and businesses.
• Wood building materials release less carbon into the atmosphere during production than other materials such as concrete, steel and glass
• See how the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities’ Softwood Lumber Check-off Program will promote messages like these, and more, to increase acceptance and use of softwood lumber.

5. Provides places to visit and opportunities for outdoor recreation

• Forest management helps keep our parks fun and safe and enhances recreation opportunities.
• Forestry operations are crucial in establishing and managing recreational opportunities from trails to camp grounds.

6. Provides beautiful landscapes and scenic vistas

Healthy forests and forested landscapes are some of the most beautiful places to visit. Whether you seek to find spring flowers or take a tour of fall colors, forestry provides opportunities to view and enjoy the beauty of nature.

7. Provides wildlife habitat and promotes biodiversity

• Forestry supports diverse wildlife habitat and healthy wildlife populations.
• Forestry supports opportunities for hunting, wildlife viewing, bird watching and other types of outdoor recreation.
• Forests managed at a moderate or low intensity for a wide variety of goods, services, and natural values, not unlike the New England “working forest” concept, provide habitat primarily as a function of being maintained in forestland use. These lands, both public and private, encompass the majority of the forest area of the U.S. and, with the broad diversity of management approaches on individual tracts of varying size, provide an accompanying diversity of habitats in terms of age, successional stage, vegetative composition, climate and landform. Read more about this in the Pinchot Institute for Conservation’s report titled ‘Sustainable Forestry and Biodiversity Conservation: Toward a New Consensus.’

8. Provides food and other culturally important products

Forestry supports the production of important food crops, including fruits, nuts, and special products like maple syrup. Forestry supports culturally important products such as birch bark crafting, basket weaving and medicinal plant collecting. Read an article on basket making (scroll to p. 10).

9. Employs thousands of people

Sustainable forestry can be used to address chronic rural poverty in developing countries – and prevent deforestation.

• Ecomadera: Market strategies for sustainable forestry
• [Video] U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities Initiative: Forest Investment Zones

10. Offers a source of renewable energy

The branches and tops left after a timber harvest provide a low-carbon, domestic energy source that can help move us towards a renewable energy economy

• Biomass from forests
• [Report] Wood Pellets: Becoming a Primary Product

11. Makes clean and safe water more available and utilities cheaper

There are clear linkages between water quality and the cost of water treatment. A number of studies show measurable, statistically significant changes in the cost of water treatment as a result of source water quality degradation.

• Forests and drinking water
• [Video] U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities – Healthy watersheds through healthy forests

12. Protects water quality and improves soil quality, particularly on trails and roads during management activities.

Guidelines have been developed for removal of woody biomass that protect water quality and other important forest conditions.

• [Report] Energy from Woody Biomass: A Review of Harvesting Guidelines and a Discussion of Related Challenges
• [Report] Revised Assessment of Biomass Harvesting and Retention Guidelines

13. Cools climate

The energy consumption linked to wood products manufacturing is low compared to energy requirements for competing products such as steel and concrete. Carbon emissions are similarly lower.

• [Report] Providing Incentives for Bioenergy While Protecting Established Biomass-Based Industries

14. Helps reduce urban heat islands

• Trees and forestry are important in all of our communities. Urban forestry supports the care and responsible use of our urban forests. Urban forests are important because of their size and scope, their impact on local economies, and the many social and environmental benefits they provide, due in large part to their proximity to people. According to the U.S. Forest Service, urban trees in the contiguous U.S. account for nearly one-quarter of the nation’s total tree canopy cover—approximately 74 billion trees.
• Urban forestry—sometimes referred to as urban forest management—is the planning and management of trees, forests, and related vegetation within communities to create and add value. Throughout the past two centuries in the U.S., the focus of urban forestry has shifted from one of beautification to one that includes the environmental, conservation, economic and social benefits of community trees and urban forests.
• Read Dovetail Partners’ report – Urban Forestry: A Revolving Discipline.

15. Provides a tool for restoring fire adapted forests

• Millions of acres of western forests have become unhealthy because of a century of fire suppression.
• Collaborative forestry provides a way to restore these forest to historic conditions.
• Read about a Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program project in the Cibola National Forest.

16. Helps protect our communities from wildfire and ensures that they do not become out of control

Forestry operations provide the knowledge and economic drivers to reduce the threat of wildfire around communities in fire adapted forests.

17. Offers tools for addressing invasive pests and pathogens that threat our forests

Unfortunately, exotic attackers from gypsy moth to sudden oak death threaten our forests, and forestry offers tools to respond to these invaders.

18. Is part of vibrant rural communities

Forestry is part of the tradition and future of rural communities across the country.

19. Helps conserve forestland and protects sensitive areas

Through working forest conservation easements, land owners can ensure their land remains as forest while still providing income and forest products.

20. Finds creative uses for wood affected by pests and disease

Forestry allows for the recycling and creation of one of-a-kind wood products from trees that must be removed due to diseases and pests, such as the emerald ash borer. Small businesses like City Bench utilize these diseased trees to make one-of-a-kind wood furniture.

21. Allows for the continued growth and regeneration of healthy forests, keeping forests as forests.

22. Protects utilities from becoming disconnected.

Forestry prevents damage during storms so power and utilities do not become disconnected.

23. Provides tools to respond to a changing climate.

The changing climate is already altering where trees grow best and forestry gives us tools for adapting to new climate realities. Read the report: Climate Change, Carbon, and the Forests of the Northeast.

24. Allows for the retention of carbon in manufactured forest products such as lumber.

Read more about the Softwood Lumber Check-Off Program and how it will promote softwood lumber usage.

Putting Faces with Names; Details with Concepts

The Endowment is a very small organization with only five full-time employees augmented by one or two university interns.  As one might guess given the breadth of our work, our three program leads spend a great deal of time on the road.  Those visits to the field and related travel afford the opportunity for many to get to know our team members personally.

Using Technology to Expand Outreach
With the help of our “below 30 team” – read: interns—we’ve begun adding brief videos to our set of communication tools.  We know that this is important not only for a younger video generation but also to allow others with interest to see and hear from our team at least in a virtual way.

Adding Depth and Background to the Annual Report
The Endowment, an organization that operates on a calendar year for its fiscal/tax purposes, works very hard to get our annual report on the street as quickly as possible each year.  The latest was no exception.  Our 2011Annual Report was out-the-door and on our website before the end of February.  We think that’s fast by any measure.

In the release that accompanied our report, we committed to adding some depth and background with video links.  While we have several planned over coming weeks, we’ve posted the first of those already.  Take a look and let us know what you think.  

President & CEO Carlton Owen discusses the Endowment's Operating Context. 

Senior Vice-President Peter Stangel--Healthy Watersheds through Healthy Forests.

Vice-President Alan McGregor shares details of the Forest Investment Zones. 

A Commitment to Transparency

Many politicians are learning the all-too-important lesson that in the Internet-age any comment made once – either verbally or in writing – seemingly lives forever.  Context rarely matters.  In such times one would think that transparency is a given.  We tend to differ.  Transparency is far more than just having access to every comment (and flub) that someone makes.

Transparency or the commitment to open processes and/or reporting of decisions, even in the Internet-age, is still an exception rather than the rule.  One of the early commitments that the Endowment made as an organization was to develop a set of values and then detailed stewardship principles that put “feet to those values.”  The seventh and foundational of our stewardship principles is summed up as, “We value transparency, welcome public interest and communicate openly.”

Easy to Say; Hard to Do
In a world that appears to be linked from one-end-to-the-other, we often find the various media vehicles and information flow yields only overload.  We know that one media or one message won’t serve all needs.  We find this to be indelible even in our very small staff of just 6 (including our annual intern).  Each of us has a different learning style and desires to receive and ponder information in different ways.  Take it to the next level with our 13 Board members and we don’t just add 13 additional styles, the challenge expands exponentially.  When taken to the next level – that unnumbered subset of America’s 310 +/- million citizens who are interested in our work – and the exercise becomes mind boggling.

So, without trying to be all things to all people, we’ve committed our selves to turning  our “valuing of transparency” into several tangible approaches that we hope serve to “welcome public interest” on one hand and “communicate openly” on the other.

Tools to Advance Transparency
Among the many tools that we used to advance our commitment to transparency are:  This blog (now published twice monthly); an annual report (published both as hard copy and an electronic version); news stories on our website; publication of final reports and “quick and dirty” summaries of convenings (to share learnings and avoid duplication of effort); one-page summaries of each of our projects and/or initiatives; press releases on significant happenings; two-way outreach sessions with specific groups as our program staff travels about the nation; a ListServ to link to those who express interest in our work;  immediate publication of annual audits as well as IRS Form 990’s upon their approval; and, two additional tools – quarterly “plain language reports” (for those with interest in our stewardship); and evaluation reports that share learnings (both positive and negative) regarding the impacts of our programmatic investments.

Annual Reports
While the Endowment has no legal requirement to produce and distribute an annual report, we’ve chosen to do so from our inception.  In fact, we just distributed our 5^th report (calendar year 2011) that overviews not only results from the prior year, but also looks back to learnings and successes from our entire history.

While most Endowment documents are generated only as electronic version so as to ease access and distribution, we mail a hard copy of the annual report to every member of Congress as well as a long list of partners and opinion leaders.

If you’ve viewed our annual report before – and we encourage you to do so HERE – you’ll note that it is much shorter than that of many of our peers.  Our intent is to produce something that we hope will be a quick and easy read.  Too, this year we are adding new features in the form of live links that dig a bit deeper into how and why we do some of the things we do.  Those will be rolling out over coming weeks, so keep checking back.

Future Blogs
In the next couple of issues of our blog we will dig a bit deeper on some of our other transparency tools.   At any time we welcome your thoughts on ways we can effectively enhance chances of success towards our transparency objective.