Completed Project Report

Northwest Certified Forestry workshop expansion

  • Award Amount: $42,000
  • Regional Center: Western Extension Risk Management Education Center
  • Grant Program: 2008 Competitive Grant Program
  • Project Director:
  • Email: ian@nnrg.org
  • Organization: Northwest Natural Resource Group

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Project Overview

Small forest landowners in Washington and Oregon face increasing challenges to keeping their lands in forest use. Real estate pressures, complex and changing regulations, and fluctuating market values for timber cause many landowners to sell or develop their land, permanently removing it from forestry and the economic and environmental benefits forestland provides. This project, focused on ~80 small landowners in northern and central Oregon and southwest Washington, utilized a series of hands-on workshops to increase understanding of sustainable forest management, markets for local, certified wood products, small-scale manufacturing, and ecosystem services products. This knowledge helped landowners to take advantage of current and emerging markets for certified products and the ecosystem services provided by forest lands decreasing the financial risk of operations based solely on commodity timber. This project also provided for individual follow-up consultations with interested landowners leading to diversified revenue streams and improved operations.

Over the course of this project 275 forest landowners participated in workshops and received assistance. 45 completed or updated their forest management plans to better address current market trends and to include income opportunities beyond commodity timber. 14 landowners chose to adopt a premium certified forest management approach or to undertake small secondary manufacturing ventures to obtain better prices for their products during the market downturn. Many other landowners also made changes and updated plans to reflect their new understanding of the options available to them including managing for carbon sequestration value or non-timber products. Overall these practices decrease the risk of managing purely for commodity timber in this unstable timber market.

Number of Participants: 275

Outcomes

Project Steps

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EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

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REPORTS & EVALUATIONS

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DELIVERY AREA

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