Assessing Cross-boundary Cooperation Toward Conservation and
Cost-Savings Across Private Forest Ownerships

Principal investigators: Mark Rickenbach, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
                                  Lisa Schulte, Iowa State University, Ames, IA

Key Partners: Iowa & Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources

Issue At Hand With over half the nation's forests in non-industrial private ownership, efforts to sustain timber supply, wildlife habitat, ecological integrity, and recreation opportunities now and in the future will heavily depend on how private forest lands are managed. Management plans on private lands are almost always focused on individual properties, but many conservation values occur over landscapes (e.g., wildlife habitat, water quality). Individual landowners working together may help achieve forest conservation as well as higher economic returns through joint marketing of timber. What We Hope to Accomplish Our goals in this study are: (1) to assess the conservation implications (both monetary & wildlife) of individual owner versus coordinated management among multiple private land owners, and (2) identify workable approaches to foster adoption of such coordination by these owners.
		How We Go About It Study landscapes were located in Iowa, Richland, and Vernon counties, Wisconsin and Fayette County, Iowa. We used forest plans from these landscapes to compare the likely range of benefits, costs, and outputs under individual property and coordinated management scenarios. We identified workable strategies for coordination through seven focus group discussions with landowners from our study landscapes.
What We Found We found ample opportunities to coordination management across properties under the existing forest planning system, and that coordination can effectively address concerns such as forest fragmentation and volume constraints to commercial harvesting on small properties. Landowners suggested they would consider coordination to increase their economies of scale, overcome operational constraints associated with managing small parcels, and to learn from and share information with their neighbors. Some also saw the opportunity to conserve and protect forests long into the future.

Funding for this project was provided by the US Forest Service Northern Research Station, Iowa State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Kickapoo Valley Reforestation Fund. For more information, see the following publications:

Gass, R., M.G. Rickenbach, and L.A. Schulte. 2006. Forest management on parcelized landscapes: Private forest owners assessments of cross-boundary alternatives. Pages 93-102 in Wall, S., editor.  Proceedings from the IUFRO 3.08 Small-scale Forestry and Rural Development Conference, Galway, Ireland. (pdf)

Gass, R.J., M. Rickenbach, L.A.Schulte, and K. Zeuli. 2008. Cross-boundary coordination on forested landscapes: Investigating alternatives for implementation. Environmental Management 43:107-117.

Rickenbach, M., and L. Schulte. 2008. Cross-boundary coordination: working across tiny boxes. Woodland Management XXVIV:26-67.

Schulte, L.A. , M. Rickenbach, L.C. Merrick, and R. Gass. 2006. Cross-boundary coordination among private forest owners to achieve landscape management objectives. Pages 219-225 in Lafortezza, R. and G. Sanesi, editors. Patterns and processes in forest landscapes: consequences of human management. Proceedings of the 4th Meeting of IUFRO Working Party 8.01.03, Lacorotondo, Italy. (pdf)

Schulte, L.A., and M. Rickenbach. 2008. Cross-boundary coordination among private landowners to achieve landscape management objectives. BetterFORESTS IX(3):18-19.

Schulte, L.A., M. Rickenbach, and L.C. Merrick. 2008. Ecological and economic benefits of cross-boundary coordination among private forest owners. Landscape Ecology 23:481-496.