Winter 2001, Vol. 1, No. 1

RTI's objective is to use better technology to manage forests in rural areas for increased product and environmental values in support of local communities.

• Use of complex equipment and remote sensing
• Landscape management systems and computer tools
• Market research and planning packages
• Facilitate existing infrastructures
• Adding more technical experts and trainers
• Equipment and computer systems
• Training infrastructure
• Provide information resources
  

RTI Director's Notes
By Bruce Lippke

RTI is a federally funded program created to assist in the development and transfer of technology to rural forested communities in order to better manage forests, and increase product and environmental values. Accelerating the adoption of new technologies is recognized as a way to at least partially relieve the growing pressures on how we manage our forests and production processes. UW College of Forest Resources and WSU Cooperative Extension make up the core support team to respond to these needs. Early this year our rural advisory board helped us establish our first priority list of projects. At the top of the list was to understand the impact of the Forest and Fish Agreement and characterize best management responses for small landowners.

We launched five NIPF case studies that involve a range of riparian conditions in Lewis County. Our preliminary analysis of these cases is the feature article (page 1) in this, our first newsletter. The effort was larger than expected and we still have several management alternatives to consider. However it has enabled us to develop a template for performing a fairly complex analysis of owner alternatives.

We are now ready to broaden our sample to include other regions of Washington State. In our feature article we concentrate on the economic impacts under alternative management plans. We characterize the resulting value for the standing timber and separately on the residual or bare land value.

Many will find the disparity in impacts across owners and the impact on land values (the fundamental motivator to sustain forestry) more than provocative, even though this is not the first time these issues have been raised. A somewhat broader review of the economic impacts of riparian regulations was published in the Western Forester (July / August 2000).

We use the Landscape Management System (LMS) developed under Professor Chad Oliver as the primary software tool (free download access) to simulate and visualize future forest conditions resulting from management alternatives. We have conducted several training sessions on LMS to capacity audiences with very positive feedback. We are now planning periodic training sessions over the next year (page 4). Based on our survey of training needs (page 4) will be expanding training to include GIS, GPS, road layout and other critical tools needed to support better management practices.

We are in the process of developing habitat suitability models linked to stand conditions resulting from management changes. These models will be essential to obtain support for habitat conservation plans or other alternatives that might provide equivalent habitat at lower cost, while still being within the discretion of approval by the Small Landowner Office. We are also working on new tools that will improve road planning activities. Updates for these projects will be featured in future newsletters.

This newsletter will feature new findings from our projects and provide references to sources of information on new technologies. The UW College of Forest Resources' recent conferences on Certification of Public Lands, and International Forest Products Marketing (IFPM) both provide information-loaded websites. E-commerce may be the technology buzz-word of the year. The IFPM conference featured four speakers emphasizing different aspects, and their presentations are on the Center for International Trade in Forest Products website (www.cintrafor.org).

This issue also includes the RTI 2000 Activities Executive Summary, which will be presented annually at the beginning of the first quarter.

We are interested in your feedback on the newsletter and specific articles or issues. If you are interested in a more detailed report on our activities, please contact us.

Bruce Lippke, Director
email: rtiu.washington.edu
(206) 543-8684