EWP Briefing Papers

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/1794/13126

Founded in 1994, the Ecosystem Workforce Program was created to help lead the rural Pacific Northwest into the age of ecosystem management--management for healthy communities and healthy environments. The EWP believes that, by creating high skill forest and watershed jobs that enable people to work near their homes, we will establish a structure for long term resource stewardship. Our goal is to demonstrate the linkages between a quality workforce, a healthy economy, healthy community, and effective management for forest ecosystems.

For more information, visit the web site at: http://ewp.uoregon.edu/

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Browsing EWP Briefing Papers by Author "Abrams, Jesse"

Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
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    Community wildfire protection plans in the American West
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2014) Abrams, Jesse; Ellison, Autumn; Knapp, Melanie; Moseley, Cassandra; Paveglio, Travis; Nielsen-Pincus, Max
    Large wildfires are increasingly common in the American West. The federal government is responsible for the majority of suppression costs, and has a significant interest in policies that can improve resilience at the community level. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) of 2003 encourages communities to complete Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs). While not mandatory, CWPPs give communities access to federal and state funding for activities highlighted in plans. HFRA allows flexibility to adapt plans to local contexts; however, little is known about whether communities have capitalized on the opportunity to develop site-specific plans that meet the needs of individual communities. This research analyzed CWPP structure and content to better understand variability between plans.
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    The effect of state and federal policies on biomass business investments in California
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2017) Becker, Dennis R.; Abrams, Jesse; Fenster, Emily; Kudrna, Jordan; Smith, Timothy M.; Moseley, Cassandra
    Wood-based biomass energy plays a key role in California’s wood products economy and in the state’s commitment to renewable energy. The state has developed numerous policies and programs to support biomass energy harvesting, transportation, and production, and the federal government has implemented policies to support related business development. The research reported here investigates what policies have been most important in fostering biomass business investments in California and in creating strategic opportunities along the biomass supply chain.
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    The effect of state and federal policies on biomass business investments in Michigan
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2017) Becker, Dennis R.; Abrams, Jesse; Fenster, Emily; Kudrna, Jordan; Smith, Timothy M.; Moseley, Cassandra
    Wood-based biomass energy plays a key role in Michigan’s wood products economy and in the state’s commitment to renewable energy. The state has developed numerous policies and programs to support biomass energy harvesting, transportation, and production, and the federal government has implemented policies to support related business development. The research reported here investigates what policies have been most important in fostering biomass business investments in Michigan and in creating strategic opportunities along the biomass supply chain.
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    The effect of state and federal policies on biomass business investments in Minnesota
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2017) Becker, Dennis R.; Abrams, Jesse; Fenster, Emily; Kudrna, Jordan; Smith, Timothy M.; Moseley, Cassandra
    Wood-based biomass energy plays a key role in Minnesota’s wood products economy and in the state’s commitment to renewable energy. The state has developed numerous policies and programs to support biomass energy harvesting, transportation, and production, and the federal government has implemented policies to support related business development. The research reported here investigates what policies have been most important in fostering biomass business investments in Minnesota and in creating strategic opportunities along the biomass supply chain.
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    The effect of state and federal policies on biomass business investments in Oregon
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2017) Becker, Dennis R.; Abrams, Jesse; Fenster, Emily; Kudrna, Jordan; Smith, Timothy M.; Moseley, Cassandra
    Wood-based biomass energy plays a key role in Oregon’s wood products economy and in the state’s commitment to renewable energy. The state has developed numerous policies and programs to support biomass energy harvesting, transportation, and production, and the federal government has implemented policies to support related business development. The research reported here investigates what policies have been most important in fostering biomass business investments in Oregon and in creating strategic opportunities along the biomass supply chain.
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    The effect of state and federal policies on biomass business investments in Washington
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2017) Becker, Dennis R.; Abrams, Jesse; Fenster, Emily; Kudrna, Jordan; Smith, Timothy M.; Moseley, Cassandra
    Wood-based biomass energy plays a key role in Washington’s wood products economy and in the state’s commitment to renewable energy. The state has developed numerous policies and programs to support biomass energy harvesting, transportation, and production, and the federal government has implemented policies to support related business development. The research reported here investigates what policies have been most important in fostering biomass business investments in Washington and in creating strategic opportunities along the biomass supply chain.
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    The effect of state and federal policies on biomass business investments in Wisconsin
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2017) Becker, Dennis R.; Abrams, Jesse; Fenster, Emily; Kudrna, Jordan; Smith, Timothy M.; Moseley, Cassandra
    Wood-based biomass energy plays a key role in Wisconsin’s wood products economy and in the state’s commitment to renewable energy. The state has developed numerous policies and programs to support biomass energy harvesting, transportation, and production, and the federal government has implemented policies to support related business development. The research reported here investigates what policies have been most important in fostering biomass business investments in Wisconsin and in creating strategic opportunities along the biomass supply chain.
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    The effectiveness of biomass policies in supporting business investments in Oregon : preliminary results
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2015) Abrams, Jesse; Moseley, Cassandra; Ellison, Autumn; Becker, Dennis R.; Kudrna, Jordan
    Wood-based biomass energy plays key roles in Oregon’s wood products economy and in the state’s commitment to renewable energy. The state has developed numerous policies and programs to support biomass energy harvesting, transportation, production, and utilization. The federal government has also created policies to support biomass business development. Given the complex policy environment, it is not clear whether or how policies interact to influence business decisions. This research investigates what policies have been most important in fostering biomass business investments across the supply chain.
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    Land manager experiences with resilience in national forest planning and management
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2020) Coughlan, Michael R.; Ellison, Autumn; Abrams, Jesse; Huber-Stearns, Heidi
    As the concept of resilience has gained importance as a guiding principle in land management objectives and policies in recent years, there has been some question about how the concept is operationalized in forest planning efforts. In this Joint Fire Science Program-funded research project, we surveyed 428 USDA Forest Service planners to get their perspectives on what resilience means, what it takes to plan for resilience, and the factors that complicate and encourage resilient landscape outcomes. Survey results illustrate how resilience is incorporated into planning and how well it aligns with planning processes and frameworks on a broader scale, including factors that enable or constrain managing for resilience.
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    Planning and managing for resilience : lessons from national forest plan revisions
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2020) Abrams, Jesse; Greiner, Michelle; Timberlake, Thomas; Schultz, Courtney A.; Evans, Alexander M.; Huber-Stearns, Heidi
    Recent federal forest and wildfire policies have increasingly united around a vision of restoring resilient landscapes in the face of increasingly destructive wildfires driven by altered forest conditions and climate change. The process of revising forest plans guiding national forest management presents opportunities to reorient management informed by concepts of resilience. This Joint Fire Science Program-funded research used case studies of three recently completed national forest plan revision processes to determine whether and how USDA Forest Service staff were able to plan for resilient outcomes. The lessons from our comparative analysis are relevant for forest managers and key stakeholders attempting to plan in pursuit of more resilient landscapes.
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    A profile of community-based organizations in the U.S. West
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2016) Abrams, Jesse; Ellison, Autumn; Davis, Emily Jane; Moseley, Cassandra; Nowell, Branda
    Community-based organizations (CBOs) are non-profit organizations based in rural communities that work on both local economic development and natural resource stewardship. CBOs were established in many places across the U.S. West to help struggling rural communities build sustainable natural resource-based economies. They often serve communities that were greatly affected by changes to public land policy and changes in the timber industry or other natural resource industries since the late 1980s. These communities have typically experienced social conflict, unemployment, and other challenges related to environmental management. In 2016 we conducted a survey of CBOs across the West to better understand their organizational characteristics and activities.
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    A profile of federal timber purchases in the U.S. West
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2016) Davis, Emily Jane; Abrams, Jesse
    The US Forest Service primarily engages the private sector through service contracts, stewardship contracts, and timber sales. Both stewardship project and timber sales can generate commercially valuable wood products, and some businesses may rely on these federal timber sources. However, little is known about the timber-purchasing businesses currently active on federal lands. To gain a better understanding of these businesses, we investigated their characteristics, business needs, challenges, and reliance on federal timber sales.
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    Promoting fire-adapted communities : the importance of social diversity in the wildland urban interface
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2014) Paveglio, Travis; Ellison, Autumn; Abrams, Jesse; Moseley, Cassandra; Carroll, Matthew S. (Matthew Stephen)
    Fire-adapted communities are those that can effectively reduce risk to private property through community actions while allowing wildfire to play a regenerative role in the local ecosystem. However, little is known about what fire-adapted communities look like or how different kinds of communities can achieve this goal. This research advances knowledge about community fire adaptation while also recognizing that social and biophysical context varies among communities.
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    Rangeland fire protection associations : an alternative model of wildfire response
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2017) Davis, Emily Jane; Abrams, Jesse; Wollstein, Katherine; Meacham, James E.; Steingisser, Alethea Y., 1970-; Cerveny, Lee K.
    Wildfires are growing in size, frequency, and severity across rangelands in the U.S. West. Although fire is a natural component of sagebrush steppe ecosystems, it can also threaten values such as sage-grouse habitat, forage for grazing, and residential and commercial structures and encourage invasive plant establishment. Wildfire suppression responsibilities have historically been divided among resident ranchers, some rural fire districts, and government agencies. But wildfire, and interest in managing it, crosses ownership boundaries. Since the 1990s, numerous Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs) have emerged in Oregon and Idaho, and a recent law authorizes RFPAs in Nevada as well. RFPAs organize and authorize rancher participation in fire suppression alongside federal agency firefighters, typically from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These all-volunteer crews of ranchers have training and legal authority to respond to fires on private and state lands in landscapes where there had been no existing fire protection, and can become authorized to respond on federal lands as well. There has been growing policy interest in better understanding the RFPA model.
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    Strategies for addressing mountain pine beetle outbreaks on national forests
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2019) Davis, Emily Jane; Huber-Stearns, Heidi; Abrams, Jesse; Steen-Adams, Michelle M.; Bone, Christopher,1978-; Moseley, Cassandra; Ellison, Autumn
    Elevated outbreaks of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) have occurred on national forests across the western U.S. over the past two decades. Resulting widespread tree mortality has affected forest health, tourism and recreation, the timber industry, public safety, and other values. There is an ongoing need to better understand federal land management approaches to mountain pine beetle (MPB) and other disturbances on public lands, as well as the variables that support or inhibit effective responses. This National Science Foundation-funded research investigated MPB response through case studies on national forestlands in five states, focusing on feedbacks between social and ecological systems during outbreaks.
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    Using wood to produce energy for U.S. homes and businesses
    (Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, 2014) White, Eric M.; Atkins, David (Forester); Moseley, Cassandra; Abrams, Jesse; Ellison, Autumn
    Wood is one of the most abundant and versatile renewable energy sources in the United States. Heat and electricity can be generated from low-value woody material such as small trees, tree limbs, brush, and wood waste at scales from residential to industrial. Using wood to generate energy can lead to local employment, reduce energy expenses for buildings, companies, and local communities, reduce wildfire and insect hazard for forests, and reduce smoke pollution from open burning of forest residues. Here, we illustrate some opportunities for wood energy production as well as key considerations for creating successful projects.