- Author: Grace Dean
With decades of forestry and community outreach experience behind him, David Kelly felt he had more to give after retiring as Division Chief for the U.S Forest Service. Now, he's the Forest Specialist for the Arrowhead Lake Association (ALA), where his experience with the San Bernardino National Forest can be implemented at a smaller scale. “The first thing I said to [ALA] was, what's your forest management plan?” Kelly remarks.
Looking back, Kelly explains that the concept of forest management was not always celebrated in the Lake Arrowhead community. Years ago, homeowner's...
- Author: Grace Dean
Visit the new Forest Stewardship Story Map!
For the past four years, Kim Ingram, Forest Stewardship Education coordinator, has been listening closely to the private forest landowners who participate in her Forest Stewardship Workshop series. During the workshops, landowners share their experiences clearing thickets of vegetation, replanting post-wildfire and tackling invasive species, and their concerns of who will take care of their forest when they're gone.
To alleviate their stress, Ingram turns to natural resource professionals at CAL FIRE, local...
- Author: Grace Dean
For Yolo County's Tracy Katelman, being a self-proclaimed “treehugger” was a part of her identity. A forester though? “I wasn't planning on getting my forester's license,” she told me. “When I helped start the Institute for Sustainable Forestry in Humboldt County in 1991, we were exploring how to empower small forestland owners to restore their cut-over forests. After receiving a CAL FIRE grant, I learned I had to be a Registered Professional Forester (RPF) to legally talk to people about how to manage their forestlands.” That began a long career in natural resource education, a topic for which Katelman is passionate. She currently serves on...
- Author: Grace Dean
Earth Day 2023 celebrates the ways in which we can all invest in our planet, and forest landowners play a considerable role in this. Part of being a forest landowner is deciding where and when to invest your time, money, and energy. To assist them, the UCCE Forest Research and Outreach team collaborated with four experienced landowners to highlight ten tools a first-time forest landowner can invest in.
Listed below, these ten tools expand past saws and rakes to include tools that educate landowners and support their management activities. We hope this compilation gives readers new to forest management a proper start.
1....
- Author: Grace Dean
Forty acres of forestland- that's how much Drew Nelson and his wife lost during the Creek fire of 2020. “We had intentions of rebuilding there,” he told me, but “it was a really tough time after the fire.” They decided to move to a plot nearby, where they could continue working towards their forest management goals. I spoke with Nelson, who accomplished a five-acre prescribed burn on the new site near Alder Springs this past February. Aided by the Sierra Resource Conservation District (SRCD) and his local Prescribed Burn Association...
