During his Fellowship, Linsen will research social issues related to urban forestry, and is particularly interested in public participation in planning, planting and maintaining urban forests. He will also spend time working with research methodology for carbon sequestration by urban vegetation and various models that estimate the benefits of urban forests such as STRATUM and CITYGreen.
In December, Mr. Namgon Kwag also joined WFI for a six-month Fellowship. Namgon is sponsored by his employer, Eagon. Namgon is the fifth Fellow to be sponsored by Eagon, whose closest office is in Seattle. Namgon is a manager on the Management Support Team for Eagon Living Co. Ltd, a wood flooring subsidiary, and deals with planning and corporate activities. Previously, he has worked with Eagon on a variety of tasks, including corporate strategy planning, labor affairs, flooring distribution, and wood veneer purchasing.
During his Fellowship, Namgon will be exploring homebuilding and decorating trends and the housing market. He is interested in how Americans do business and how they are currently dealing with environmental issues.
2007 passed quickly for Nerijus Miskinis, WFI’s first Lithuanian Fellow, who completed his Fellowship in December. Nerijus’ Fellowship was sponsored by the Shelk Foundation. During his time at WFI, Nerijus interviewed CEOs and managers in the forest industry in order to compare forest sector issues between the two countries. “I feel lucky because I worked on such a project,” said Nerijus. “I liked what I did, I greatly enjoyed the people I met and I strongly believe it will help me improve my personal life in the future. How and how much? Probably I will answer this question completely 20 years later!”
Nerijus is planning to travel to Brazil before returning to Lithuania to finish his Ph.D. project at the Lithuanian University of Agriculture.
Farewells are always difficult, but Nerijus will remember the good times. “I would consider the World Forestry Center my home in the US,” said Nerijus. “I will miss this Rose City!”
In August, WFI welcomed Deepak Dorje Tamang from Nepal and Nathan Trushell from Australia. Both of these Fellows signal new partnerships in sponsorship for the Fellowship Program.
Deepak is a senior development specialist with nearly 3 decades of experience working in rural development and environment, including extension, capacity building, planning and monitoring, in Nepal and other countries in South, Central and South-East Asia. He currently heads a non profit organization in Nepal called Search-Nepal (www.searchnepal.org.)
Nepal, with 10 of the 14 highest mountains in the world, suffered environmental degradation, deforestation, and soil erosion from the 1950s-1970s due to poor policies. However, the government and private sector have since worked together for better laws and Nepal has seen much improvement since, especially in reforestation, environmental protection, conservation and biodiversity. Improvements have also been made to promote a variety of forest ownerships, including community, leasehold and private forests. National parks have been created, bringing in much needed eco- and heritage- tourism and mountaineering.
Deepak will spend 12 months researching comparative environmental legislations in the US and other Fellows’ countries in forestry, environment, national parks, conservation and biological diversity. Deepak’s study aims to identify good policy case studies that balance population, environment and development.
Nathan Trushell and his family arrived the same weekend from Australia. Nathan is employed as a regional manager with VicForests, overseeing business operations throughout West Gippsland, Victoria. VicForests was established in 2004 as a government owned business enterprise with responsibility for the commercial sale, harvest and regeneration of the state source within the state of Victoria. Over the last three years the organization has focused on designing and implementing its fundamental business model. This has included the development of a market based sales system for timber from forest resource within the state of Victoria. Over the last three years the organization has focused on designing and implementing its fundamental business model. This has included the development of a market based sales system for timber from state forest via an electronic online sales system (the first in Australia), implementation of mill door sales and the development of a sustainable forest management system certified to the Australian Forestry Standard. VicForests sells approximately 1.6 million cubic meters of native eucalypt hardwood, mainly to domestic processors in the sawn timber and pulp and paper sectors of the forest industry.
Nathan will spend six months exploring commercial forestry promotion and branding strategies within the supply chain. Despite forest management undergoing massive change over the past two decades within Australia, there is still ongoing debate surrounding production forestry, particularly within native forests. Complexities of the economic, social and environmental aspects of forest management make it difficult for evidence or scientifically based information to be easily relayed to key stakeholders. To ensure the security of the industry into the future effective promotional and branding strategies are essential. Upon return to Australia Nathan will take on a new role with VicForests as Business Development Manager and will continue some of this work.
Nathan’s wife Helen and daughters Alex and Megan join him in Portland. Helen, also a forester, is taking a break from work to enjoy the Pacific Northwest while Alex and Megan will attend school in Portland.
Rick Zenn has been Education Director at the World Forestry Center since 1990 and has a passion for creating programming that engages people in "hands-on" learning. He is an internationally recognized environmental educator with over 30 years experience in the field as naturalist, guide, program manager and trainer. He has worked on educational initiatives with the Smithsonian Institution, World Wildlife Fund, and the US Forest Service, and has served as advisor to many conservation and education organizations and is a member of the Project Learning Tree National Education Committee.
Students from Portland and beyond have benefited from education programs at the WFC Discovery Museum and at the center’s demonstration forests near Wilsonville and Silverton. The program reaches more than 600 schools and community groups and 10,000 children each year. WFC’s museum, camps, lectures, programs, field tours and forest education events have helped connect kids with trees and forests for more than twenty years.
The award was named to honor The Oregon Department of Forestry’s former Tillamook State Forest Education Coordinator, Mary Rellergert, who passed away in February 2004. Rellergert was a founder of the Tillamook State Forest Education Program, which provides high quality forest learning experiences for K-12 students at the Tillamook Forest Center.
In this issue, find articles on:
*New Fellow from
*Outdoor recreation field tours
*Welcome to new Education Forester
*Recent events
*Updates from alumni around the globe
Fellows visited Webster Nursery, a 50 year old nursery run by the Washington Department of Natural Resources. The nursery provides 10 million seedlings a year to state and private lands for reforestation. The 260 acre facilities primarily grows 9 species, including Douglas-fir, true firs, pines, and alder. Webster is Washington’s only state run nursery and has been self-funded since 1962; all seeds, salaries, improvements and operations are paid from the nursery's $2.5 million yearly revenues. Click on the transplant team for more photos.
To understand how Oregon manages highly used recreation areas, Fellows visited the most popular site in Oregon: Multnomah Falls. The falls are the tallest in Oregon at 620 feet and they receive over 2 million visitors each year. There were a few surprises here for Fellows, including the lack of an entrance fee and how little time visitors seemed to spend at the falls (about 15 minutes). Fellows also visited the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center.
Click on Nerijus for more photos.
Education Director Rick Zenn toured Fellows around Silver Falls State Park and Johnson-Swanson, a WFC-owned tree farm. Silver Falls State Park is home to ten waterfalls and is very popular with visitors. The management model used at Silver Falls is similar to those used in national parks. Fellows learned about managing visitors alongside wildlife such as cougars, income opportunities such as campsites and cabins, and the historic legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corp. Click on Ma for more photos.
Matthew will be investigating the use of integrated field data management systems. A competitive global market for timber products has increased the need to efficiently manage every aspect of the forestry business. The amount of information required by managers has also increased, due to greater accountability requirements for investors, environmental regulations, and certification systems. This equates to greater information transfer “to” and “from” the field with as much real time information as possible.
There is growing adoption of handheld computers to manage information in the field that goes beyond simple inventory numbers, and most questions have a spatial element. The coupling of GPS with handheld GIS for various functions allows for easy collection and management of field data. Matt’s project hopes to gain ideas for expanding upon data collection functions for more complicated user questions. For example, imagine the efficiency boost if field users could quickly find answers to questions related to management issues of boundary types, road suitability for harvest, and culvert use, without returning to the office for additional information.
Matthew is accompanied by his wife Ainsley and children Keegan (4) and Will (2). Ainsley has recently completed her teaching degree, but she also has diverse educational and work experience, including degrees in Asian Studies and Aquaculture. Before teaching Ainsley worked with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife service as an interpretive ranger, which included fire fighting duties and managing a silver pearch fish farm. The Pope family has traveled extensively, thanks in part to one of Ainsley’s positions as a travel agent, and are looking forward to their year-long American adventure.
The Oregon Logging Conference showcases logging equipment, tools, and techniques. Fellows explored the show. Click on the lumberjack for more pics.
Zengwang Ma gave a presentation on forestry in Hebei, China, to the Tillamook chapter of the Society of American Foresters. The Fellows took advantage of this trip to the coast to visit Oswald West State Park, Camp 18, and Ecola State Park. Click on the guys for more photos.
Fellows visited the Northwest Sportsman's Show to learn about outdoor recreation opportunities. For more photos, click on Cris trying his hand at the bow and arrow.
Tillamook Forest CenterWith an advertising slogan of “find yourself in the forest,” the new Tillamook Forest Center tells the story of the Tillamook, an area once devastated by a series of fires in the 1930s and 1940s. Over 800 square miles of forest was destroyed and it took twenty years to replant in Oregon’s first major reforestation effort.
As the new forest grew, it took many years for recreation interest to develop, but as people began using the forest an obvious need to manage visitors emerged. The Tillamook is now heavily used by off-highway vehicles, campers, hikers, mountain bike riders, and others. The Tillamook Center took over ten years to plan and was envisioned as part of a larger recreation planning process for this state-owned forest area.
Doug Decker, the project manager for the center, spent a day teaching Fellows about the planning process to develop this new attraction, which opened less than a year ago. Doug shared his experiences in recreation planning using the “three E’s”: engineering, education, and enforcement. He discussed how vital each component is for successful management of recreation sites.
For photos visit: http://flickr.com/photos/18377428@N00/sets/72157594536442158/
Rick Zenn toured Fellows around WFC’s demonstration tree farm in Wilsonville, Magness Memorial Tree Farm. For more photos, click on the Fellows and the log cabin.
The Monarch butterfly is the best known of all migratory butterflies, traveling across the Americas to overwinter in Mexico. In 2000, Mexico established a reserve called the Biosphere of the Monarch Butterfly, a 56 hectare protected area. Despite its protected status, conservation is complex because so many people live within the reserve.
Mexican Fellow Cristopher Lopez Paniagua, sponsored by the US Forest Service, is designing an ecotourism plan for one of the ejidos, a community owned forestland called Cerro Prieto, in the municipality of Angangueo in Michoacan State. In January Cristopher spent several weeks meeting with ejido members and conducting visitor surveys and was joined for one week by WFC Education Director Rick Zenn.
Angangueo is the second most popular Monarch site to visit. Most Cerro Prieto ejido members were loggers until the creation of the reserve in 1996. Now they must struggle to find enough ecotourism dollars to make ends meet. They are hampered by national versus local politics, low skill levels (they have limited training in tourism or English), and lack of funding.
In the most popular sanctuary as many as 4000 tourists visit per day, putting enormous pressure on the monarch’s habitat. There is therefore need to create alternative sources of employment and productive projects for these communities so that they will not deplete the monarch’s natural habitat.
Cristopher’s trip gave him first-hand experience with the needs of ejido members, as well as visitor wants and needs. He will spend the remainder of his project developing training sessions for ejido members on topics of interpretation, customer service skills, and basic English lessons. He will also design trail signs and interpretive flip-guides to help tourists better understand the reserve. Cristopher was well received by ejido members, who lamented that so many foreign aid groups and national government programs are initiated but the benefits never reach down to their level.
Fellows spent a day exploring Portland urban parks and sites, including Oxbow Metro Park, The Grotto, and McMenamin's Edgefield. Click on Nerijus for more photos.
Fellows spend a blustery evening enjoying the warm hospitality of WFI founder Harry Merlo. Click on the group photo for more pictures.
Korean Fellow Seol Woong Lee bid farewell to WFI in January. He will spend one month in Seattle working for his employer in Korea, Eagon, at their Seattle branch office. Click on Lee's photo for more pictures from his farewell lunch and pictures of his final poster.
