Community-Based Forestry Study

"The Communities Committee of the Seventh American Forest Congress has developed and completed the following reports about CBF in the U.S., with contracted assistance from American Forests. The reports address perceptions of and participation in community-based forestry (CBF) in the United States. For over a decade, a broad range of participants have sought to join, participate in, and advance this emerging social movement as a visionary form of sustainable forest stewardship. This project was pursued to investigate what forms of support a sample of participants, as individuals and as organizations, felt would be most helpful and effective in furthering the practice of CBF on the ground and at a collective scale, and to determine its reach and potency as a force for social, economic, and environmental change. The study was conducted through two surveys: the first was a qualitative survey that involved telephone interviews of various leaders and long-time participants in CBF. The second was a quantitative survey that sought responses from a larger and more diverse set of participants via an internet-based instrument."

Phase 1 Survey Report | Overall Study Final Report

A Multiparty Assessment of the New Mexico Collaborative Forest Restoration Program, 5 Years of Implementation and Lessons

In 2005, the Forest Service convened a National Collaborative Assessment Team to conduct a multiparty assessment of the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP). The team examined the development and implementation of the CFRP using an innovative approach from three different perspectives: implementation; effectiveness; and validity. To view the Final Report, the Executive Summary, and other related materials, please visit http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/spf/cfrp/

The Urban / Rural Initiative

Through two pilot projects, one in Baltimore, Maryland and the other Seattle, Washington, the Urban / Rural Initiative at American Forests seeks to learn and demonstrate how metropolitan regions can restore and maintain the critical ecological services provided to them by forests within their borders and in the surrounding rural areas. In order to be effective, such projects need to transcend political and social boundaries and be rooted in communities working together. The pilot projects are placing a strong emphasis on helping underserved urban communities restore their forests suffering from economic disinvestment and a declining tax base, as well as helping rural communities on the edge of metropolitan areas facing rising land values for suburban development and the destruction or fragmentation of existing forests. While strategies and solutions may be many, partners involved with this initiative have focused on building educational, economic, and political connections to establish sustainability across political boundaries.

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