Forest Restoration Initiative

The Healthy Forest Initiative has been passed into law by the current administration as a management approach for our nation's forests. Unfortunately, the HFI addresses the critical state of western forests by using inappropriate tools such as salvaging after fires, removal of large trees, and continued fire suppression in fire dependent ecosystems.

The Ecosystem Policy Project is a collaboration of the Four Corners Institute, Forest Guild, and other groups in the West, to bring a more scientifically sound approach to fire management and to promote forest restoration as the appropriate paradigm for returning integrity and sustainability to our forests. The EPP will seek to inform forest management with sound restoration science, channel funds into appropriate treatment projects, and support forest-friendly legislation and rule-making.

Forest restoration works to return ecological integrity to southwestern forests altered by uninformed uses and policies. Traditional communities that have long depended on forest resources for their livelihood now have an opportunity to be engaged in and benefit from the rehabilitation of these forests.

The Institute aims to bring together the diverse voices of the Southwest, people with a stake in the health and integrity of the environment, to collaborate in their recovery. In many cases, local traditional knowledge can inform and improve restoration projects.

Collaborative Forest Restoration, Rowe Mesa, New Mexico

Ponderosa pine forests, grown dense from fire suppression efforts, are now burning in unnatural crown fires. Forest restoration in these forests means thinning small trees and returning surface fires. The Institute has a partnered project with local stockmen and fuelwooders to reduce crown fire risk and restore more natural processes to 300 acres of forest on the Valle Grande Grass Bank in northern New Mexico. The project is nearing completion. The forest was restored, with the help of a thinning crew and over 100 fuelwood collectors. This U.S. Forest Service Collaborative Forest Restoration Project was a partnership with local community members, The Forest Guild, The Quivira Coalition, Grassworks, and The Conservation Fund.

Landscape Scale Restoration in the Southwest

In 2004, a second Collaborative Forest Restoration Project was awarded to The Conservation Fund for the Valle Grande Grass Bank, on 900 acres of forest just to the north of the first project. The Four Corners Institute will assist in the development and implementation of the restoration on this expansion of forest restoration on Rowe Mesa.

Restoration Monitoring

Local communities need access to tools and training to address the challenge of assessing the results of restoration treatments, and to learn more effective ways to accomplish the task of returning healthy conditions to natural places.

CFRP Technical Assistance Project

The Collaborative Forest Restoration Program, sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service, requires its award recipients to develop a multi-party monitoring team that assesses the positive and negative impact of the restoration work on impacts on the ground and on local community capacity. To assist the nearly 60CFR projects, a partnership was developed, funded by the CFRP Program for three years, to assist communities fulfill their monitoring commitments.

The Four Corners Institute, The Ecological Restoration Institute of Northern Arizona University, and Forest Guild, are collaborating to assist communities with monitoring. The project provides on-site training, help with designing monitoring plans, training of youth, and developed a series of handbooks for use in carrying out effective monitoring.

Community Monitoring Protocol

A protocol was developed by the Institute to help local communities design and implement simple but effective restoration monitoring strategies. "Community Monitoring for Restoration Projects," a step-by-step guide to monitoring community projects, was developed by the Institute and published by The Forest Guild as a National Community Forestry Center Working Paper to help communities meet this challenge.

In 2004 a second handbook, "Community Monitoring for Restoration Projects in Southwestern Riparian Habitats," Working Paper Number 16, was published to assist in monitoring restoration work on the Rio Grande and other smaller rivers.

Restoration Monitoring for Communities

A workshop to provide monitoring guidelines for communities implementing US Forest Service Collaborative Forest Restoration projects was co-sponsored by the Ecological Restoration Institute, the US Forest Service, The Forest Trust the National Forest Foundation, and the Four Corners Institute in 2002. The guidelines include monitoring of socioeconomic and ecological factors in multi-party restoration projects.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge

A project to combine traditional and cultural knowledge with scientific approaches to monitoring restoration projects was undertaken by the Institute. An integrated approach to monitoring will create a strong foundation for culturally appropriate management of forests. The work combined traditional knowledge of Tesuque Pueblo with a scientific monitoring approach. The project partnered with Tesuque Pueblo and results were published in a Forest Guild Working Report Number 15, entitled "Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Informing Bosque Restoration at Tesuque Pueblo."