Journal of Forestry

Gordon, Jason S.; Luloff, Al; Stedman, Richard C.

doi: 10.5849/jof.10-086pmid: N/A

It is increasingly important that natural resource managers understand residents' perceptions of wildfire risks, particularly as the wildland–urban interface expands. Risk perceptions influence resident risk reduction strategies that are crucial to effective hazard management. This study compares key informant responses about community wildfire risk from five areas of the eastern United States. Perceptions are influenced by ecological characteristics as well as economic and sociodemographic factors. These include, e.g., the proliferation of low-density housing and second home development, local values and norms, and the strength of public services. Despite federal designation of wildfire risk, most informants said their communities were relatively unconcerned about wildfire. In some places, informants noted awareness of wildfire but lack of concern. Findings illustrate how social and cultural characteristics of participants' communities intersected with biophysical elements of wildfire to attenuate risk perceptions. Implications for community wildfire risk mitigation policy are discussed.

Moore, Susan E.; Cubbage, Frederick; Eicheldinger, Celia

doi: 10.5849/jof.10-050pmid: N/A

We conducted e-mail surveys of organizations that had received forest management certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in the United States and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) in the United States and Canada to determine if forest certification has changed forest management practices and if the changes are practically and statistically different between systems. The results indicate that forest certification prompted substantial changes in practices. On average, firms implemented 13–14 changes in forestry, environmental, social, and economic/system practices to obtain or maintain forest certification. Although there was no statistical difference between systems in the total number of changes, there were many differences in the implementation of specific forest practices, with FSC firms required to make more environmental/forest management changes and SFI firms required to make more economic/system changes. Forest managers believed that the benefits of forest certification were greater than the disadvantages. SFI managers rated the benefits of forest certification higher than FSC managers, but also rated the disadvantages higher. Most organizations felt certification accomplished their objectives and were likely to recertify, thus indicating their endorsement of the process.

Daigle, John J.; Utley, Lindsay; Chase, Lisa C.; Kuentzel, Walter F.; Brown, Tommy L.

doi: 10.5849/jof.10-091pmid: N/A

The Northern Forest spans New York and three New England states and contains over 26 million ac, making it the largest contiguous forest east of the Mississippi. Most of the forestland is privately owned and public access to private land is a time-honored tradition in the region. Residents fear this tradition of open access may be threatened by recent acceleration in land tenure change across the region. We surveyed those who own 1,000 ac or more in the four-state region and found that newer owners were not more likely to post their land. There was, however, a correlation between the owner's land-management priorities and recreational activities permitted on the parcel. Results indicated that timber/forest product companies and Real Estate Investment Trusts allowed more public access for traditional wildlife activities such as hunting and fishing, as well as trail-riding activities such as snowmobiling and all-terrain vehicle riding, than landowners managing for recreation or for nature conservation. Results also indicated that new landowners in the Northern Forest currently maintain the tradition of free public access to their lands.

Hilker, Thomas; Coops, Nicholas C.; Newnham, Glenn J.; van Leeuwen, Martin; Wulder, Michael A.; Stewart, Jim; Culvenor, Darius S.

doi: 10.5849/jof.11-003pmid: N/A

Airborne LiDAR (ALS) has been widely used for measuring canopy structure, but much of the woody components of the canopy are not directly visible with this system. Terrestrial LiDAR (TLS) data may help fill this gap by helping to understand the relationship between above- and below-canopy architecture. In this study, we report on the potential for combining TLS and ALS, thereby focusing on forest inventory and wood quality–related characteristics (such as number and dimension of branches). Our results show that both TLS and ALS were able to describe stand height using the top 10% of LiDAR returns at a high level of precision; however, TLS measurements were negatively biased by approximately 1 m (R2 = 0.96 and 0.86 for ALS and TLS, respectively; P < 0.05). The distribution of foliage measured by ALS and TLS was strongly related to basal area (R2 = 0.63 and 0.91 for ALS and TLS, respectively) and stand density (R2 = 0.89 and 0.72 for ALS and TLS, respectively). Tree-level attributes were more accurately described by TLS (R2 = 0.63) compared with ALS (R2 = 0.37) for crown depth and a similar result applied to dbh with R2 = 0.63 for TLS versus R2 = 0.43 for ALS.

Zheng, Daolan; Heath, Linda S.; Ducey, Mark J.

doi: 10.5849/jof.10-094pmid: N/A

Forest area determined from remote sensing–derived land cover maps alone at moderate resolution may not appropriately reflect dynamics of housing development in the forested wildland–urban interface (WUI). We conducted a study to quantify how housing development could affect estimates of forest carbon sequestration (FCS) in northern New England, where the percentage of WUI in relation to total land area is nearly double the national average. We found that housing development in the forested WUI could potentially reduce FCS by at least 4% for the region, ranging from 1.7 to 9.3% at the county level, compared with estimates without considering housing effects. This impact is expected to increase by 40% by 2030, based on predicted future increase in housing density within the study area. The majority of housing effect occurred in the intermix WUI where houses and forests intermingle. County-level differences between the approaches with and without considering housing effects decreased from coastal to inland areas because of a decrease in housing density. More than 99% of the difference on FCS estimation came from the low- and medium-density WUI. Although retaining the forest but allowing housing within it may be a good compromise for many reasons for local or regional planning, our results serve as a reminder that decisions related to such housing developments are not carbon neutral.

Miller, Char

doi: 10.1093/jof/110.2.112pmid: N/A

This content is only available as a PDF. © 2012 by the Society of American Foresters

Woodall, Christopher William

doi: 10.1093/jof/110.2.113pmid: N/A

This content is only available as a PDF. © 2012 by the Society of American Foresters

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doi: 10.1093/jof/110.2.115pmid: N/A

This content is only available as a PDF. © 2012 by the Society of American Foresters