Forestry Issues Are Not Issues at All

Nick Hylla

Wisconsin Forest Resources Education Alliance (WFREA)

We all agree that Wisconsin’s forest resource base faces many challenges over the coming decade. But, it is worth considering that none are a result of forestry practice nor can they be solved with the same.

The most pressing issues include parcelization, introduced organisms, timber supply, and international competition. These issues result from social and economic forces that originate and perpetuate outside of the scope of forest management. Scientific forestry and sustainable forest management do not hold the answers to these challenges.

To illustrate this point, let’s take a look at the parcelization of forestlands in Wisconsin. Each year in Wisconsin, over 3000 new parcels are created from contiguous forestland. The majority of these landowners are not knowledgeable about forest management or not interested in producing timber. This has obvious widespread impacts on timber availability since half of Wisconsin’s forestland is privately owned.

So why does parcelization occur?

Parcelization is the result of changing land valuation and changing land ownership. Similar to the migrations from city to suburb after WWII, suburban and city homeowners today are buying their own piece of nature – their escape from the rat race. Increased populations and incomes now lead to tourist communities and rural development for seasonal use. This trend not only takes forestland out of production, but also increases property values – providing incentive for industrial forest landowners to sell lands for development as well.

As with many issues, the consequences are unintentional. From industry advocates to environmental activists, we all want forestland. Yet, in our actions, we defy our wishes.

And how can forestry practice solve this problem?

The short answer is that forestry cannot solve the problem. Forestry cannot solve the problem because forestry is not the cause. Social forestry programs like the Managed Forest Law and forest landowner organizations and cooperatives like the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association are effective in getting some landowners back into forest management, but they are still subject to the much larger trend.

If forestry can’t solve the problem, what can be done?

As you may have guessed, I believe that education is the solution. Education programs have the opportunity to take a comprehensive look at issues using a variety of disciplines. Education programs can build knowledge, skills, and capacity starting in a child’s first classroom and continuing throughout their life. Education programs can influence understanding, perceptions, values, actions and lead to individual and social changes. Education can help societies understand and interact with social and economic systems to maximize individual and societal benefits.

For education programs to be effective in creating knowledgeable and engaged societies, they must bridge disciplines and they must be relevant. We know issues like parcelization are relevant, but in what discipline would it be best to teach about it? Clearly the issue requires and understanding of environmental science, history, social studies, and economics.

An understanding of forest issues requires education programs that are locally relevant and multi-disciplinary. As programs like LEAF develop classroom materials and organizations like WFREA advocate their use and expand their impact, it remains for the schools to make the most crucial decision: to formalize interdisciplinary, locally relevant education as part of their mission and to provide the time, resources, and space to make it a reality.