Global Change Fellow Presents at American Foresty Convention

Michaela Foster, a current Global Change Fellow with the SE Climate Science Center presented a paper at the joint Society of American Forestry and Canadian Institute of Forestry Convention earlier this month. It was also co-located with the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress. It ran from October 8-11, 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Foster presented an abstract titled, “Understanding the decision context for landscape scale conservation: the case of longleaf pine”. She presented results from an evaluation of 38 management plans from various agencies including the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, America’s Longleaf, Department of Defense, and state agencies.

Project Background:

Management plans were evaluated in the five categories: objective and problem statement, fact base, actions and implementation, integration with other plans, and stakeholder participation. Results show that plans from federal and state agencies scored higher in the evaluation than plans from non-governmental organizations. In addition, plans from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the state wildlife action plans had significantly higher evaluation scores than plans from the Forest Service or the state forest action plans.This study also identified the objectives listed in the 38 plans that were associated with longleaf pine ecosystem management, and the results indicate that objectives are similar between plans and across the span of agencies, falling into four themes: fire, habitat and species, administration and collaboration, and public engagement.

Her presentation is based on a SE CSC-funded project: Development of a SECAS Conservation Decision Guidance Library