Good News for Tree Farmers
We had a terrific meeting with Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Chief Dave White, their National Forester Bruce Wight, and the Director of Ecological Services Terrell Erickson on Tuesday, March 22. The purpose of the meeting was to sign a memorandum of understanding between NRCS and the American Forest Foundation with two key elements.
For the first time, we now have a common management plan template for the American Tree Farm System®, the USDA Stewardship program and NRCS. This is one more reason the Tree Farm program makes a real difference on the ground for woodland owners – as the program gets rolled out on a state by state basis our plan will streamline access for folks in the system to apply for cost-share dollars for their conservation work. It’s great to see Tree Farm management plans getting more recognition as an important conservation tool.
Second, the MOU creates a partnership between AFF and NRCS that will improve access for woodland owners to technical service providers (TSPs). Everyone knows that the efforts of local, state and federal governments to reign-in spending has meant the disappearance of hundreds of forester positions across the country. Combine this with the very limited number of forester TSPs, and woodland owners have been left with fewer options to get conservation plans and technical assistance for cost-share dollars. The MOU paves the way for us to work with NRCS to allow Tree Farm Inspectors to get just a bit more training to allow them to become TSPs in their own right. This is a win-win for Inspectors and for woodland owners.
For those of you that don’t know Dave, he is not only the funniest guy in Washington, he is a major fan of the Tree Farm system (as you can see by the photo.) Bruce has been the driver in getting woodland owners more access to financial assistance, including cost share conservation dollars, and Terrell helps ensure that we keep our eye on the big conservation picture — a terrific team and we’re lucky to have them
