ENTS:

Before I retired, I made the mantra for my post-retirement career.  It
is pretty simple, "I plan to plant trees until I drop."  I just turned
65 and have been "messing about" learning about issues of
preservation, restoration, forestry, global warming, non-profit
enterprise, etc., etc.  Trained as a sociologist with an interests in
Applied Sociology, I spent years in the academy studying
organizational strategies for promoting change, and along the way
became somewhat enamored of the ideas espoused under the heading
"General Systems Theory."  I made a living helping businesses and
academic researchers make the computer do things they wanted to get
done.

My observations and experience to date suggest that there exists a
real opportunity for an organization with highly trained technical
experts and a cadre of well equipped trained staff capable of
promoting and supporting volunteer or cooperative events and programs
could have a huge impact, especially on the lands being acquired and
planned for by the "non-profit Land Trust community." Everywhere in
this country, relatively new "Preservationist" non-profits are
aquiring land as fast as they can raise money to do it.  Many of them
are stuggling independently to come to grips with how to manage, or
what to do with the properties that are being added to their
inventories.  A non-profit collaborator providing tree planting
services and support, afforestation plans, etc. would make these
efforts more valuable and lead to greater environmental benefits.

One of the things that I got from attending last spring's convocation
of the ENTS on the ground at Cook Forest was a strong lesson in the
impact humanity can have on a piece of environment that had served as
my childhood model for the "Forest."  I appreciate the Native American
"7 generations" view.  I easily translate that to a planning
perspective of 140 years.  Given what I've heard recently from species
experts about the problems we face estimating the environmental impact
of global warming on forest species distributions, any planning
attempting to control or influence forest environments that far out
had better include what I call the "principle of iterative
refinement."  That is, we need to know what we did, what we were
trying to do, and how it worked out, and take it into account
continuously.

When I asked the question, "what should I plant" and then went looking
for answers, I came to the conclusion we need a whole lot of
experimental plots, and we need to be willing to work to draw
conclusions from "purposeive samples" as well as use the more
traditional academic statistical inference approaches.

One of the concepts I have come up with blends the traditions of the
1930's Co-Op movement with modern franchising/marketing ideas.  The
core support organization develops and proves a model of landowner/
tree planting and service/support organization partnership which
allows for individualized "share crop" planting projects to be
sustainably harvested under the contracts and the proceeds distributed
according to negotiated formuale on a project by project basis until
an "optimum contractual model" emerges.

Unfortunately, given the 20 year cycle of wars running throughout
human history, a clause in the contract might be, "If you cut these
trees without approvial, I can shoot you."  I'm being facetious, of
course, but heavy penalties for backing out of a long term commitment
must be tempered by the recognition by all parties to the contract,
that in some cases, a particular project may need to be scrapped.  One
of the most important core elements from the begining must be a
discipline which leads to long-term data gathering and support for
research on what might be termed "normal populations."

I'm not a wealthy person, but my wife and I have no children.  If
there is a way to achieve it, I would like to be able to leave my
estate to "afforestation.org" with full confidence that it would use
the resources effectively and efficiently to continue the process of
expanding the areas on the planet "under the canopy" humans will
desperately need to keep cool and to have enough clean fresh water as
the planet warms.

I've started this thread in the hope that well thought out comments/
suggestions/linkages to this brief statement will be contributed.

Hello,

This is an interesting and worthwhile idea.  I would be willing to help by
doing whatever is needed to help organize the new group.

Ed Frank

== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Sat, Oct 6 2007 7:05 am
From: James Parton


It sounds like a very nice idea to me!

James P.

== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 7 2007 5:48 pm
From: "Edward Frank"


The Heart of the Tree

WHAT does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants a friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high. He plants a home to heaven anigh
For song and mother-croon of bird
In hushed and happy twilight heard --
The treble of heaven's harmony --
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
And years that fade and flush again;
He plants the glory of the plain;
He plants the forest's heritage;
The harvest of a coming age;
They joy that unborn eyes shall see --
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
And far-cast thought of civic good --
His blessing on the neighborhood
Who in the hollow of His hand
Holds all the growth of all our land --
A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.

Henry Cuyler Bunner

== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Tues, Oct 9 2007 3:43 pm
From: "Edward Frank"


ENTS, E. Daniel Ayres,

I am sure you have thought about this for some time. The critical question, as I see it is what do these preservationist non-profits need, and can the proposed afforestation.org serve those needs? I receive newsletters from two different small non-profit organizations that have acquired properties and are working to manage them. One of these is the Saddler Woods Conservation Association. http://www.saddlerswoods.org/ The blurbs on the organization webpage provides some background information. I will quote some of this information because I think this group is a fair model of many of these smaller organizations. One thing to consider is that organizations of different sizes of memberships, different resources, and working with different sizes of properties they have acquired or mange will have different needs.
Saddler's Woods is a 25 acre urban forest located in Haddon Township, New Jersey. Saddler's Woods surrounds the headwater spring of the main branch of the Newton Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River in Camden County, and is unique for its combined features of an old growth forest, young woodlands, and wetlands all located within five miles of Philadelphia, PA. Every year, thousands of visitors enjoy Saddler's Woods for passive recreation and nature interpretation.

Saddler's Woods Conservation Association, SWCA, is a 501 (c) (3) organization dedicated to education, restoration, and research of Saddler's Woods. Through programs, tours, hands on restoration, and field studies, we strive to promote the natural and cultural resources unique to this 25 acre urban forest...The organization was formed by Haddon Township residents who were active in the movement to save the woods from an athletic fields development plan. But saving the woods was just the beginning. Unfortunately, Saddler's Woods had suffered decades of fragmentation and neglect. Since its preservation, SWCA volunteers have worked vigorously, logging hundreds of hours towards restoration and education. For its efforts, SWCA was honored by the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, ANJEC, with an Environmental Achievement Award.

SWCA achieves its goals by partnering with community groups and area schools and by utilizing grant funds for restoration, education, and research. To date, SWCA has received grants from the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary Inc., the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and Camden County's Open Space Clean Communities program. SWCA, is managed by four volunteer board directors; the Director of Forest Management, the Director of Education, the Director of Communications, and the Director of Finance.

John Nystedt, Director of Forest Management: John oversees restoration projects in Saddler's Woods, applying his industry experience to Saddler's Woods. John is an associate at Andropogon Associates, Ltd. in Philadelphia, is a N.J. Certified Landscape Architect, and has 25 years of experience in landscape architecture and ecological planning.

I am citing this organization not because it is extremely well run, or extremely poorly run, but simply as a jumping off point for discussing the needs of this and similar sized organizations. Future posts can address the same for larger organizations and larger scale forest projects. The questions here are: What is being managed by the organization? What resources does the organization have? What are the long term prospects and plans for the organization and the properties they are managing? What are their current and likely future needs? What might they need outside help to accomplish?

What are they managing? In the case of Saddler Woods they are managing a 25 acre urban forest. Obviously there are different things that can be done with different scales of forest plots. Are these groups trying to accomplish goals appropriate for the size of the parcels they own, or plan to purchase in the future?

Examples of natural and anthropogenic disturbances (adapted from Scott et.al. 1999)*

Natural Events Anthropogenic Events fire
residential development
disease epidemic road, trail, railroad line
flood telephone line, utility line
drought dam, canal
hurricane/tornado/landslide commercial development
landslide modern agriculture
ice storm mining
logging
grazing

*Entries in italics denote reversible disturbances, while those in Roman usually represent long-term effects

On the smallest scale are parks that allow an interaction with people and nature in the form of trees, no matter how intact or not intact the ecosystem may be. Consider that in many urban settings a small park with a few trees may be all the "nature" that local residents and children ever encounter under normal circumstances. There are programs that create gardens in an empty lot for people to enjoy and experience living plants. A few acre park in which they can walk around is a big deal. Something like an arboretum could be placed in a small area with a collection of different species for people to encounter. These parks will need to be managed more aggressively simply because they do not have the reserve of a large number of species and trees available in larger areas. Any negative impacts will affect a larger percentage of the total area. But these small scale features are deserving of protection by these non-profit groups. Natural disturbances, wind storms, fire, ice storm have the potential to easily destroy the entire grove. There is not enough land to support a self contained ecosystem, but with proper management a natural-like setting can be maintained. I personally see value in individual old trees.


On a slightly larger scale these groups can think about trying to represent a more natural forest system. You ask in a parallel post: "What about the landowner with the tiny 40 acre or less parcel which either has no "old growth" left, or represents a tiny remnant with edges recently created? My parents left us a 15 acre parcel with four white oak giants in a low area with limited equipment access for which we have estimated ages in the 400 year range." I think the goal of most of these organization if possible is to recreate as natural of a setting as possible for future generations to enjoy. Mike Leonard wrote: (10-03-07) "Old growth stands have been identified and documented as small as 5 acres so there is room for a small old stand in a 40 acre lot that doesn't necessarily have to be 5 acres. You could have several small stands and manage them to promote "old growth attributes". I think 25 acres is large enough to recreate a natural setting for people to visit and enjoy. Tom Diggins suggested that two trees would make up the minimum needed for something to be called "old growth." This is the goal of many of the groups acquiring land. The question comes to mind is how small can a forest be, to become a self-perpetuating ecosystem? Can a forest be restored to a state that it is to a large degree self-perpetuating ecosystem after they have been mangled for several generations? I know there is some debate concerning restoration forestry and its effectiveness, but overall the concept seems sound to me. Comments anyone? Given the large outside influences of edge effects, browsing, global warming, invasives, I do not think these segments can be left to their own devices without some active sustaining management.

On larger scale you have major organizations purchasing lands or easements covering hundreds or thousands of acres. These are generally designed to provide habitat for species that require a large patch of interconnected forest to reproduce, or to protect larger scale patches of old-growth or otherwise unique ecosystems.

Synthesis of factors used for setting size thresholds for matrix-forming communities in the Northern Appalachians. Disturbances are scaled to 4 x the largest severely disturbed patch size. Neotropical songbirds follow Robbins (1989). Other species are scaled for 25 times the mean female breeding territory. (Adapted from Anderson and Vickery, in press)



Scaling factor Size Threshold in acres Reference

Generalist species

Bobcat 125,000 Fox & Brocke 1983

lynx 80,000 Burt & Grossenheider 1976

Fisher 75,000 Kelly 1977

moose 50,000 Crossley & Gilber 1983



Interior forest species

Marten 30,000 Major et al, 1981

Fire (Lowland spruce fir) 27,000 Cogbill & Royte 2001

Minimum viable forest size 25,000

Tornado 19,000 Peterson & Pickett 1991

Barred Owl 17,000 Mazur & James 2000

Severe downbursts 14,000 Stevens 1996

Northern Goshawk 10,500 Poole & Gill 2002

Neotropical migrants 9,000 Robbins 1989, Askins et al. 1987

Spruce Grouse 7,700 Ellison 1973

Hurricane 3,212 Foster et al. 1988

Black and white warbler 2,200 Poole and Gill 2002

Fire (northern hardwood) 250 Bormann & Likens 1979

woodland jumping mouse 25 Blair 1941

Deer mouse 25 Blair 1941

s. red backed vole 8 Blair 1941



The final category of lands that these groups tend to purchase are those that protect a unique habitat or threatened species. Examples might include something like a small serpentine barren with a number of obligate plant species. Examples from The Nature Conservancy in Pennsylvania include: Aitkin Cave - 43 acres, West Fall Ridge Prairie Preserve - 60 acres property and 120 acre easement, Mountain Run Ponds - 10 acres, Acopian Preserve - 108 acres to preserve Bog Turtle habitat, 4 serpentine barrens ranging in size from 210 acres to 630 acres, Butternut Island - 36 acres...plus a number more, many of small size. Access to many of these sites is limited to guided tours or work sessions. The goal here is preservation of unique areas. Future goals in these cases is to acquire surrounding areas as buffers and areas that are needed to complete the habitat.

Each of these different sizes of forest, and each of these different goals will likely have different needs. Do you envision Afforestation.org trying to provide services to each of these groups? For the services provided by Afforestation.org do you plan to charge for tree planting at around cost? Do you plan to offer free services? Are you gong to be looking for volunteer forestry consultants to help with management plans in different areas? Do you envision a general plan that will be available to everyone with customization on a site by site basis?

What resources does the organization have? And is their anything Afforestation.org can do to help in this area? There are three broad categories of resources: 1) manpower, 2) financial, and 3) expertise. Most of the smaller scale organizations are powered entirely by volunteer efforts. Some of the larger have paid staff. Organizations driven by volunteer efforts may have a questionable future. What will happen to the organization when the current enthusiastic members driving the organization retire or pass away? I have been a member of a couple of groups that basically have faded away once the founders dropped off the scene. The big problem here is how to assure that these organizations to which help is given, will be there in the future? Those groups with paid staff are generally larger, have more money, and are likely to last beyond the current generation of founders.

Saddler Woods has held several volunteer efforts and events. These include regular guided tours of the woods to maintain local interest in preservation, cleanup efforts to remove trash from the woods, invasive plant removal, and tree planting sessions. These seem reasonable and are being duplicated by many groups around the country.

The second question is how are the groups paying for their efforts? After the initial purchase of the properties, there are costs to maintain them. Some of this money is paid for out-of-pocket by volunteers, but I am sure there are things that need to be purchased from vendors and contractors. How is that money being raised? At Saddler Woods, for example, there are annual membership fees ranging from $10 upward, there are requests for donations, the website has an online store that sells t-shirrts, sweats, and tote bags. In some cases money is available in the form of community grants. User fees may be charged at some locations. At the Saddler's Woods Conservation Associations website a "Saddler's Woods Conservation Area Management Plan: http://www.saddlerswoods.org/ManagementPlan_Final%20Draft.pdf This document outlines many of the issues involved in establishing an area like this for public use. I recommend looking it over as an example.

If I understand the original proposal, one of the ideas was to do periodic timber harvests on at least select areas of the properties purchased by these preservationist non-profits and that money be used to offset ongoing operating costs. Is there some way to estimate how much money would be generated by harvesting a given sized area, and how frequently these harvests could be made? I suppose to a large degree how far the money stretched would depend on how frugal the group was. The big concern is how to assure a long term commitment to these processes. E. Daniel Ayres suggests contracts of some kind. That is fine, but to my mind many of of these properties were purchased so that their fate could be controlled by the purchasing group. A contractual long term management plan, even in return for services, might seem to be giving back to large of a degree of control to someone else. I am not sure how well this idea would go over.

Over time many of the purchases made by these groups are transferred to other entities. Some properties are given to larger conservation organizations like the National Audubon Society or The Nature Conservancy. Some are given to the state to create parks, TNC often acquires land and transfers it to various state or federal agencies for long term management. This is a reasonable option for long term care, but given the current state of affairs with TNC (doing a horrendously bad job of dealing with the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid), and not spending money on local efforts like the should) and state agencies like the MA DNR wanting to log an urban state park at Robinson State Park, I would like to see some better contractual obligations included in these transfers. (Not to mention abuse of Eminent Domain powers.)

Expertise is the last category of resources available to these groups. In most cases the expert directing the management of the property is whoever can be co-opted to serve in the position. Hopefully this person will have some degree of expertise or has contacts with people who can help with the management plans. In the case of Saddler's Woods the Director of Forest Management is a landscape architect with 25 years of experience, and I am sure has contacts in the field. other groups may not be as lucky. This is an area where Afforestation.org could be of great help - providing expertise or linking these groups with experts in their area that are willing to help devise a workable management plan.

One idea I would like to suggest is the creation of a forum - much like the ENTS discussion list - and inviting representatives of these various organizations to join and participate. They could then share ideas about getting volunteers, raising money, discuss problems they are having, and share information. To a large degree many of these groups seem isolated from each other. Some may even be antagonistic to each other. As part of a larger discussion group or consortium, even distant groups or those not on friendly terms would be able to share ideas and information. This could be one of the first things set up in the Afforestation.org and would not cost anything if a service like Google or Yahoo groups were used.

I have more ideas, but wanted to post these thoughts now, while thinking about other things. I want to keep this idea going forward.

Edward Frank

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TOPIC: Ideas for a new organization - afforestation.org
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/b12948fed53bdb16?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Mon, Nov 5 2007 6:02 am
From: Ren

eay...@comcast.net wrote:
> ENTS:
>
> Before I retired, I made the mantra for my post-retirement career. It
> is pretty simple, "I plan to plant trees until I drop." I just turned

I'm a retired logger/ GC home contractor and I plant lot's of trees.
I've found the biggest impact by operating a tree nursery thus I can
assure long term viability and wide distribution on my customer's
dime. Go for it. Plant all you can....I'm putting conservation
easements on all larger stands before I sell the land, with
reversionary clauses if trees get cut without my or my designee's
permisssion. I sell the land, get my profit and buy more, but don't
sell the trees. Kinda of reverse of standard logging where the trees
get sold and cut when the land sells.

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Ideas for a new organization - afforestation.org
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/b12948fed53bdb16?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Tues, Nov 6 2007 6:19 am
From: "Joseph Zorzin"



----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Frank
To: ENTSTrees
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 9:00 PM
Subject: [ENTS] Re: Ideas for a new organization - afforestation.org

At least in Massachusetts, there is a state wide group for all the land trusts, conservation commissions, and similar folks- at http://massland.org/. They run a list server which I subscribe to, though I don't say much there as much of the discussion is about the legal issues. They don't seem all that interested in forestry issues. Other states probably have similar state wide groups.

A national discussion group and web site linking land trusts and conservation "orgs" is a good idea. Maybe there already are such groups- I should ask in the massland list server. Running such a discussion list would take a lot of effort- ideal for a retiree- I'm only semi-retired. <G>

Most conservation "orgs" seem to think they've done their job once they've "locked up" the land- the idea of actually managing the land seems to not interest them- but, these orgs often claim they don't have enough money to do the work they want to do- yet they sometimes sit on valuable timber land.

Joe