Governor's Advisory Committee on Chip Mills

Revised Draft Final Report

E. EDUCATION, TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT

Missouri's nonindustrial private forestland (NIPF) owners are the silent majority in the state's forestry community. More than 300,000 in number, these individuals and groups control 85% of forestlands in the state, and four-fifths of them own parcels of 50 acres or less. How they perceive, value, and utilize their forest holdings will obviously be a dominant factor in the ecological and socioeconomic sustainability of Missouri's forests.

It has frequently been noted that NIPF owners in Missouri are on the whole not practicing good forestry. While such a criticism is in many ways justified, critics sometimes forget the diverse motivations and wide range of objectives held by landowners, and the fact that some are simply not interested in practicing ‘good forestry' if the latter is equated exclusively with timber production. At the same time, it is also likely that many forestland owners do not know, or are only vaguely aware, that harvesting timber is not necessarily incompatible with other nontimber objectives, e.g., fostering viable wildlife populations, and may even enhance them. Providing landowners with such knowledge, always in a context of respect for their rights as property owners and objectives for forest ownership, is an important function of both public forestry professionals and private sector firms and individuals.

Several speakers in their testimony before the Governor's Advisory Committee observed that less than 10% of Missouri's private forestland owners are receiving the advice of a professional forester as input to decisions about whether and/or how they manage their land. Thus, for example, the Missouri Department of Conservation estimates that it makes about 28,000 contacts with landowners per year. Even if this figure excluded multiple contacts with any individual landowner, this is in fact slightly less than 10% of the state's more than 300,000 NIPF owners. However, several factors complicate efforts to pin down the actual extent of knowledge transfer that is occurring. On the one hand, not every contact likely translates into a significant ‘learning experience' for the landowner involved. At the same time, it is certainly not necessary that every landowner be contacted every year. Moreover, it is also reasonable to assume that most landowners do not simply forget what they learned from such contacts by the following year. The overall level of ‘landowner education' includes both knowledge acquired from ‘new' individual contacts and knowledge retained from previous ones. Nonetheless, it is widely accepted that the overall percentage of NIPF owners receiving professional assistance is quite low.

It has also been noted earlier that the impact of Missouri's high capacity chip mills on the ecological and socio-economic sustainability of the state's forests will be mediated by how landowners respond to the demand for wood broadcast by the mills, and specifically by the kinds of forest practices landowners adopt in selling their wood for chips. In a real sense, therefore, the wood flow passes through the life of the landowner. Discussions centered on "education, training, and/or professional guidance" all have as their focus a common theme -- to help landowners cultivate a knowledge of their forestlands and how to care for them in a way which, when integrated with their personal desires and experiences, will help them make decisions about their forests whereby they may pursue their goals in a socially and ecologically sustainable way.

This section considers several interrelated topics related to forestland owners, the loggers who harvest their timber, and the professionals who provide them with advice and assistance in managing their lands. All of the above are in turn situated within a context of a demand for wood that has recently been expanded by the arrival of two high-capacity chip mills in Missouri. Following a brief look at diverse motivations of the state's NIPF owners, attention turns to the status of landowner education and assistance efforts in the state, especially in light of the recent start-ups of the chip mill operations. The education of loggers who provide the direct linkage between the landowner's forest resource and the chip mill as a potential processor of its wood outputs is then considered. The section concludes with a discussion of forestry professionals and ways to ensure the continuing integrity of this longstanding profession in Missouri.

Landowner Motivations

The motivations of Missouri forestland owners and their interests and objectives for owning their lands are as diverse as the personalities and life histories of these people themselves. A first step in addressing the question of ‘educating' landowners and providing them with technical advice and assistance in managing their forests is to understand how they integrate these lands in their lives.

In 1993, more than half of Missouri's nonindustrial private forestland owners questioned in an extensive survey indicated that the primary purpose for which they owned their forestland was that it was part of their farm (30%) or residence (25%). Another 11% of landowners identified ‘farm and domestic use' as the primary reason they owned their forests. In addition, almost one-quarter of landowners surveyed identified aesthetic enjoyment (15%) or recreation (9%) as their main reason for forestland ownership. At the same time, less than 0.5% of all owners listed timber production as their primary objective for land ownership.

If these results are viewed through the lens of forestland area controlled by owners categorized according to the same array of primary objectives as above, almost half of the state's total NIPF acreage is owned as part of farms (20%), for farm and domestic use (20%), or as part of residences (8%). Slightly more than one-quarter of the total NIPF acreage is owned for a primary purpose of either aesthetic enjoyment (11%) or recreation (16%). Finally, about 4% of NIPF lands in Missouri are controlled by owners with timber production as their primary objective. [Most of the remaining. NIPF acreages are owned for investment purposes (7%) or as part of estate holdings (7%).]

In this light, it is evident that for about two-thirds of forestland owners in Missouri, their forests are simply identified as either part of their farm or residence or as connected with farm or domestic uses. It is also clear that timber production is not the primary goal of the vast majority of forestland owners in the state. Aesthetic and recreational interests are the principal specific use objectives identified by landowners, accounting for about one-fourth of all landowners and a quarter of all NIPF acres. However, this disinclination on the part of landowners to identify timber production as a principal ownership objective does not necessarily translate directly into an unwillingness to harvest timber from their lands. In fact, 42% of the landowners in the above sample reported that they had harvested timber from their land at some time during their tenure (Table 15). On an acreage basis, moreover, owners who had harvested timber during their tenure controlled three-fourths of the total NIPF land area.

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Table 15 . Timber harvesting history and intentions of Missouri private forestland owners, 1993.

(Source : Birch 1996)

(a) (b)
Have harvested since owned land Will harvest in future
Harvested Did Not Harvest 1-10 yrs. Indefinite Never
Owners      42% 58% 38% 33% 28%

NIPF Acres
Owned

75% 25% 59% 27% 14%

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Several conclusions emerge from the above. Clearly the owners who have harvested timber control the majority of NIPF lands in Missouri. And although more than one-quarter of those who owned forestland in 1993 declared their intention never to harvest, they control only 14% of the total NIPF land base. Recent demographic figures indicate that there has been a net in-migration of people to the Missouri Ozarks, many of whom are coming from urban areas of Kansas City and St. Louis. Since recreation and amenity values tend to be greater for this type of landowner, it is possible that the 28% figure for owners intending never to harvest could rise somewhat in the future. At the same time, since many such owners are purchasing relatively small parcels, an increase in the 14% acreage figure may lag well behind any increases in numbers of owners in this category. This may be even more likely when considerations involving the turnover rate for forest lands are brought into the picture.

Table 16 contains some data that was recently reconstructed to provide an estimate of length of land tenure for NIPF lands in Missouri. Based on the landowner survey of 1993 (Birch 1996), it was estimated that over 70% of all NIPF lands in the state had been acquired by their present owners since 1960. More than half of the total NIPF acreage had come under its current (i.e., 1993) ownership

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Table 16 . Length of tenure for the average acre of private forestland in Missouri, 1993 (Constructed from Birch 1996)

Year of
acquisition		 Median
year		 Mean length
of tenure in 1993		 Acres (M) % of acres Cumulative
% of acres
90-94 92 1 252 2 2
80-89 85 8 1661 15 17
70-79 75 18 3070 28 45
60-69 65 28 2869 26 71
50-59 55 38 1765 16 87
40-49 45 48 654 6 93
1901-1930 15 78 705 6 99
Prior to 1900 1880 113 101 1 100
Total 11077 100

Mean length a : 28 years                      Median length : 26 years
Proportion of land reaching market each year : 1/28 or 3.6%

aThis was obtained by : 1) Weighting the total acres falling within each ‘year of acquisition' category by the mean length of tenure (as of 1993) for that category [ for example, for the ‘year of acquisition' category 1990-94 -- i.e., row 1 -- this figure for "age-weighted acres" would be : 1 x 252 (thousand) = 252 (thousand); 2) summing the "age-weighted acres" for all ‘year of acquisition' categories -- i.e., rows in table; and 3) dividing that sum by the total NIPF acres in the state -- i.e., 11,077,000.

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in the 1960's and 1970's. From the figures in Table 16, the average length of tenure for an acre of Missouri NIPF land was calculated to be 28 years.

In terms of potential availability of timber from NIPF lands in the state, the following conclusions may be drawn from tables 15 and 16. Given that owners of three-fourths of the state's NIPF acres have harvested timber in the past, and that owners of three-fifths of the total NIPF acreage in the state (at a minimum) have indicated an intention to harvest timber in the future, then clearly the majority of acres are in a status in which some harvesting will take place. When added to this is the above conclusion that an equivalent of the total acreage of NIPF lands in the state is going to change ownership in the next 30 years [obviously not every individual acre; some land will turn over more than once] -- and thus that such an amount will turn over three times during the next 100 years -- then it is reasonable to assume that an equivalent of the total NIPF acreage in the state will be available for harvest in the long run.

The implications of the above are numerous and cannot be analyzed in detail here. A few initial observations can, however, be offered. First, the implications for timber availability from NIPF lands appear to be rather straightforward from the above discussion. There will likely be an amount of NIPF acres potentially available for timber harvest during the next century equivalent to the total acreage of these lands in the state, despite the fact that timber production is not the primary purpose of land ownership for most NIPF owners. This does not mean that every acre of NIPF lands will be harvested, but that over time a total acreage equivalent to all NIPF acres will potentially be available for harvest, given the combination of owner turnover rate and landowner motivations in terms of willingness to harvest timber.

At the same time, the implications for nontimber forest resource uses -- a likely principal objective for one-quarter to one-third of the state's NIPF owners over the next century (but who control less than one-fifth of the state's total NIPF land base) -- are muddled at best. It is most unlikely, for example, that lands owned by this group will remain exclusively within that group itself. In fact, for owners who don't harvest, the timber resource will presumably become more valuable during their period of tenure, perhaps making their land more attractive to prospective buyers willing to harvest timber when that land does come onto the market. Moreover, it is generally accepted that timber harvest is more likely to be conducted just prior to or just after forestland changes hands. Also, for many owners timber harvest is a once-in-a-lifetime venture. Further complications enter when one tries to analyze the situation from the perspective of some of the larger-scale ecological factors discussed in the last section. This situation raises questions about certain large-scale ecological issues -- e.g., habitat diversity, integrity of diverse ecosystems, etc.-- and the future impact of hundreds of thousands of independent landowner decisions on the forest landscape. In this regard, the comments of Barclay (1999) are particularly relevant, in noting that "state natural resource agencies and the Forest Service should determine what industrial timber owners propose to do with their forests (i.e., how they will be managed), factor in nonindustrial forest landowner trends, and then manage public forestlands to meet the remaining ecological needs on a regional basis."

This by no means, however, implies that encouraging ecologically sound management on private lands will not play a major role in the long-term ecological sustainability of Missouri forests; or that ecologically sustainable practices should not be an essential part of landowner education and technical assistance efforts. What it does recognize, however, is that even though non-consumptive uses (and related interests in ecosystem values) are a primary objective for almost one-third of Missouri landowners, and are significant as well to many others, the dynamics of thousands of individual land use decisions on the part of Missouri forestland owners has no inherent logic in itself that will automatically generate a situation in the aggregate that equates to broad-scale ecological sustainability. This in turn suggests that explicit attention ought to be given now to ensure that the ‘whole' which emerges from this long-term process driven by land use decisions and turnover of private lands does not simply turn out to be the ‘sum of the parts,' because ecological systems and processes are by their very nature not simply mere aggregates of parts.

What does this have to do with chip mills, and the ‘chip mill issue' in Missouri? Just as with virtually all of the topics related to environmental sustainability discussed in the last section, the impacts of the mills on Missouri's forest resources will be felt in the practices landowners use in responding to the demand for chips. When those practices are ‘plugged into' larger-scale phenomena like forest fragmentation and ecosystem integrity discussed above -- that is to say, when they become part of the hundreds of thousands of harvesting decisions of NIPF owners which in the aggregate will play an important role in the overall sustainability of Missouri forest landscapes -- the contribution they make towards achieving that end can either strengthen or weaken ecological sustainability, depending on the practices landowners actually use in responding to the demands of the mills. In this regard, the kind of pattern that becomes established in landowner (and logger) relationships with the mills will surely be important.

Finally, all of the above serves as a reminder of a point emphasized at the beginning of this report -- i.e., that the ‘chip mill issue' is by its very nature deeply embedded in much broader questions involving the management of all of Missouri's forestlands. Much more analysis needs to be conducted in order to better understand the implications of the complex interrelationships among landowner motivations, forestland turnover, and ecological and socio-economic sustainability of Missouri forests. The above discussion has only skimmed the surface in this regard.

Landowner Education and Assistance

There are many ways in which both public and private collective efforts may be organized to provide landowners with education and assistance in managing their forestlands. On the one hand, in designing effective education programs, much time and effort are involved in constructing program content and putting together effective learning materials. Reaching landowners who might attend classes, seminars, or demonstrations is challenging and often logistically complicated. In particular, allocating the manpower necessary for effective one-on-one communication with landowners is an expensive process that competes with other organizational (and societal) priorities. In fact, disseminating information to forestland owners in general, whether it describes sound forest management practices for timber and/or other resource objectives or various kinds of incentive programs available to landowners, can become expensive and inefficient if not directed towards those owners who are more likely to be receptive to those efforts, or at a minimum those who together control a greater proportion of the forestland base.

Equally challenging is the provision of technical assistance to forest landowners. At the field level, for example, a forest inventory may be involved -- a laborious process which may take several days or weeks. Helping a landowner develop a management plan, which always entails keeping that individual's interests in the forefront, may involve more days and weeks Even then, the process may always break down. Sometimes a professional forester may invest months in helping a landowner adopt sustainable forest management practices, only to see those efforts go for naught when the land changes hands. But despite these and other difficulties inherent in involving efficient and effective educational and technical assistance resources for Missouri forestland owners (and those in other states where similar problems are also invariably encountered), most resource professionals favor these approaches as the first line of offense in promoting sound management on private lands. A 1995 study of state forestry program managers across the country revealed that educational and Environmental Assistance Offices were rated considerably higher than voluntary guidelines, regulatory measures, and fiscal or tax incentives in terms of their effectiveness in promoting sound forest management (Ellefson et al. 1995). The Governor's Advisory Committee strongly endorses efforts to enhance the quality of such programs in Missouri.

Among the major actors in the state with a role in landowner education and the provision of technical advice and assistance to forestland owners are the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), University of Missouri Outreach and Extension, and the Missouri Forest Products Association (MFPA). The Missouri Consulting Foresters Association and its members also play an important part in this process.

Missouri Department of Conservation. The kinds of difficulties faced by public agencies in delivering effective educational programs and technology transfer are no more evident than in the progress report for educational efforts of the Missouri Department of Conservation for FY 1998. The report was straightforward about the inadequacy of existing programs and funding levels. With little or no promotion, staff satisfied 20,000 requests, and landowners still frequently found themselves having to wait three to six months for assistance. Less than one-half of 1% of Missouri's land was directly impacted, with only 2% directly impacted through other agency partnerships. The agency concluded that new techniques and materials to encourage private land management needed to be developed and funded; and that private land staff specialists should be placed in key positions to facilitate a total resource focus and open communication.

As noted earlier, MDC estimated that it made about 28,000 contacts with NIPF owners in the state during FY98. The Department provided direct forestry assistance to more than 1500 individual landowners. This was in the form of one-on-one contacts and ranged in substance from the identification of trees and plants to detailed natural resource management plans. In this regard, the Department had earlier developed a Forest Stewardship Program to encourage sustainable management of all forest resources in accordance with landowner expectations and goals. The program focuses on all forest resources, providing owners with opportunities to manage their woodlands for soil and water protection, aesthetics, forest improvement, tree and windbreak plantings, wildlife habitat, fish habitat, and sustainable forest products. The key to the program's effectiveness is the landowner forest stewardship plan. In FY98, there were 325 landowner forest stewardship plans developed affecting 45 thousand acres. This brought the total enrollment in the Forest Stewardship Program to 2431 landowners and 329 thousand acres.

The Department of Conservation also conducts a variety of educational programs and activities for Missouri forestland owners and interested citizens. Table 17 provides capsule summaries of the principal activities of this nature in which MDC is involved.

Partly in response to MDC's honest appraisal of the difficulties it was experiencing in carrying out

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Table 17 . Forestry Education Programs and Activities of the Missouri Department of Conservation

Master Tree Farmer : This landowner education program was developed in southeast Missouri and is jointly taught by MDC and University Extension. Landowners attend a 3-hour class for 12 consecutive weeks. Course content includes forest ecology, forest protection, best management practices, developing a plan, marketing and taxation. One class was held in 1997 with about 30 landowners attending.

Master Woodland Steward : This course is very similar to the Master Tree Farmer program and was developed at about the same time. One session was held in Warren County with 30 landowner attendees.

Landowner Seminars and Field Days : These programs are initiated by regional personnel and are held as often as landowners' interests dictate. The seminars and field days are usually one day or an evening in length and have a single theme. Some of the topics covered in the past workshops include agroforestry, walnut management, special forest products, hardwood management, tree planting, and pest management.

Forestkeepers : This is a voluntary forest health monitoring program. About 1000 individuals, classrooms, and other groups have joined the program. Forestkeepers select a woodlot or street trees to monitor each year to assess the long term health of those trees. Additional training is planned for those who want to become more involved with monitoring, management and assisting others with their trees.

Project Learning Tree : An interdisciplinary curriculum for teachers, youth group leaders, and resource professionals. Hands-on activities teach students about trees, forests, soil and water conservation, and wildlife. About 300 educators attend PLT training each year and they reach about 6000 students.

Forest Management Curriculum : This curriculum was developed by MDC and is distributed to vocational-agriculture teachers by the Instructional Materials Laboratory at the University of Missouri. It is a semester-long course that can be substituted for the plant science requirement in vo-ag curriculums. In forested parts of the state, trees are a better teaching connection than row crops. The course of study includes tree identification, forest ecology, forest protection, thinning and harvesting practices, and careers.

FFA Forestry Contest and Summer Camp : Working with FFA members is a way to educate the future landowners. Locally, foresters help train forestry contest teams. The contest varies from year to year, but usually includes a test of forestry knowledge and practicals on tree identification, thinning, and cruising. The teams compete on regional, state, and national levels. Many FFA chapters also attend summer camp at the Lake of the Ozarks. During each week-long session, a half-day is devoted to conservation topics. In a five-week camping season, about 700 FFA members are being reached through these programs.

Guide to Marketing Timber packet : This packet is a collection of guidesheets to help landowners who are selling timber. It contains advice on selling timber, sample contracts, contact information for MDC and consulting foresters, tax information, and recommended BMPs. Available from any MDC forestry office.

Publications and Web Page : MDC has a variety of publications on forest, fish and wildlife management. Many of these are written in ‘guidesheet' format to assist with land management decisions. Most of the publications are free and are available from MDC offices or on the MDC web page.

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primary responsibility for providing information, education, and assistance to the state's private forestland owners. Its administrative structure includes a Section Chief and three Private Land Program Supervisors based in Jefferson City. They will coordinate and cooperate with the other agency divisions and sections to develop and implement Department-wide private landowner assistance programs. From 35 to 37 additional resource professionals will be added at the field level to provide direct landowner assistance in the Department's ten regional areas. They will work in teams with wildlife and fisheries biologists and foresters to assess and direct assistance efforts based on local resource and landowner needs.

Among the goals of the program are to increase the current level of 28 thousand landowner contacts per year by an additional 48 thousand contacts annually. Local teams of Department resource professionals plan to attempt to contact all landowners who own ten acres or more and to provide them with information, education or assistance appropriate to meeting their resource management objectives. A Department-funded cost share program has also been established to assist forestland owners in conducting resource management activities. Department resource professionals will receive training in all resource disciplines, as well as in the areas of customer service, public and media relations, and public speaking. An additional program goal is to help the Department become more visible and available to commodity farmers and other traditionally agricultural-based owner/producer groups, both at the level of the individual landowner and by working more closely with these organizations to develop programs that better meet their needs.

Through its Private Land Services Section, MDC also plans to develop curricula and programs to enhance education efforts directed at both landowners and students. In addition, an internal system of tracking landowner contacts and accomplishments is currently being developed. The Department is also investigating methods to survey Missouri citizens and landowners about resource issues and needs to aid in the content and focusing of assistance programs. This is closely linked with efforts to expand the ability to measure and/or assess diverse resource characteristics such as biodiversity, amenity values, consumption patterns and changes in these and other variables. The recent commitment of staff and funding to continue the statewide Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) and Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) programs, as well as ongoing surveys and other research efforts related to fish and wildlife resources and timber products, as well as the agency's participation in the Missouri Resource Assessment Partnership (MORAP), are all intended to bolster the Department's mission of enhancing the long-term sustainability of both public and private lands in Missouri..

University Extension. The Outreach and Extension Service of the University of Missouri -- Columbia and its affiliates offers an extensive array of resources that have an important role to play in educational efforts directed towards Missouri's private forestland owners. The Extension Forester disseminates a wide variety of technical information on forest management practices and the state's wood products industry; and also organizes periodic meetings and conferences on forestry-related topics. More generally, Extension provides the most concentrated focus in the state on the construction and delivery of programs the central purpose of which is the transfer of knowledge. A noteworthy example of the above that focuses on providing education in forest management to the private forestland owner in Missouri is the Master Tree Farmer Program.

The Master Tree Farmer Program was developed in Southeast Missouri and is jointly administered by University Extension and the Missouri Department of Conservation, with the former assuming the lead role. In this program, landowners attend a series of three-hour classes for twelve consecutive weeks. In return they volunteer their time to communicate what they have learned to others with an interest in learning about forest management. The content of the course includes an overview of Missouri forests ; basic functions of the forest; silvicultural practices; forest resource protection, including fire management and control, forest insects and diseases, and the use of best management practices; watershed and wildlife management; developing a forest management plan; wood products marketing; taxes and estate planning; natural history; and urban forestry. Several field trips to private and state lands are conducted during the course to demonstrate different harvesting practices and their management.

The objective of the program is not to tell landowners the way to manage, but rather to present all the options an owner may have to manage his or her forestlands -- e.g., no cutting; uneven-aged management; and even-aged management. A primary goal of the program is to present consequences, pros and cons, of alternative management decisions. The course has been offered twice to date, with enrollments of about thirty landowners each year. A third course is planned for the first part of the year 2000.

In contrasting this kind of program with traditional landowner outreach methods, the focus is to educate landowners so as to enable them to make many of the decisions involving forest management independently. In contrast to merely reacting to landowners who request help, the emphasis revolves around equipping forestland owners with a repertoire of decision making tools and resource management perspectives so that they may both operate more independently and seek professional assistance, should they desire to again, on the basis of a well-rounded perspective of the important concerns of forest management.

While the content of the Master Tree Farmer program is exceptional -- and represents the kind of quality curriculum development at which University Extension has long excelled -- the reality is that the above kinds of quality landowner education efforts are estimated to be reaching about only one to two percent of private forest landowners in Missouri. It is difficult to estimate how many acres of forest lands have actually been affected by these programs. Some of the participants have taken advantage of assistance programs before; others have not. Some participants own no land at all; some are interested in buying land. The diversity of participants complicates the assessment of on-the-ground program impacts.

Missouri Forest Products Association. The Missouri Forest Products Association has been connected with educational activities for some time. One program that has been in existence for more than 50 years is the Tree Farm Program. This is a long-term program in which people enroll their land. The Program is a joint venture sponsored by the MFPA and the American Forest Foundation. Individual landowners are recognized with statewide and regional awards. MFPA has also conducted a number of landowner informational packet programs over the years using resources from a number of other agencies and groups.

An MFPA Task Force on landowner education met for the first time in the summer of 1999. A committee was formed which includes representatives of the University Extension, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the USDA Forest Service, and the Farm Bureau with the goal of putting together a common program or set of programs dealing with landowner education. Two key needs that were identified by this group included a statewide landowner education program for Missouri and an industry-led logger education program. The need to undertake a pilot program was also recognized, a step considered important for local landowner involvement. Another option that merited consideration was the formation of a council made up of landowners who would help revise and improve the landowner education program.

MFPA has also voiced its support for the landowner outreach component of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) of the American Forest and Paper Association. In particular, it favors SFI's emphasis on "teachable moments " -- i.e., having a person's totally undivided attention. The goal of SFI landowner outreach is for its member companies to use teachable moments in which the company forester, one-on-one with the landowner, conveys to that individual information on sustainable forestry and resource management. Some of the tools MFPA hopes to utilize as part of the overall program it hopes to develop include brochures on BMP's, reforestation and other topics, as well as conversations with landowners about their management objectives.

Forestry Consultants. A fourth group that plays an important role in providing educational opportunities and technical assistance to Missouri forestland owners is the state's association of consulting foresters. Currently there are 40 forestry consultants listed in the Missouri Consulting Foresters Association membership directory. These professionals are generally self-employed and offer their services on a fee or contract basis.

The services provided to landowners by forestry consultants involve all facets of forest management. Among them are included value appraisals and/or inventories of forestlands, silvicultural practices, assistance to landowners in developing resource management plans, and marketing assistance for selling forest products. In addition, some consultants offer specialized services such as real estate appraisals, landscape planning, environmental impact statements, and specialty product marketing. With their background of technical training in forest management, consulting foresters represent an important component of the state's forestry community.

Program Content and Delivery. A question often asked in connection with the kinds of programs described above is whether effective landowner education consists of different programs for different people, or a kind of prototype education program where ‘one size fits all.' In light of the diversity of landowner objectives noted earlier, one might be tempted to say that landowners vary so greatly in their motivations for forest ownership that different approaches will likely be required to reach different groups of owners. Thus, for example, the Master Tree Farmer Program might be most effective at reaching one group of landowners that is somewhat more interested in management and perhaps slightly more attuned to ecology and/or environmental aspects of land ownership. Another program, such as one in Arkansas entitled "Top Dollar for Your Timber," would more likely appeal to another group of forestland owners -- i.e., more traditional agriculture-oriented individuals who may or not be as interested in learning about the ecology and silvics of their forest lands. At the other end of the spectrum is a group that would likely be quite receptive to MDC's Forest Keepers Program, which is geared towards people who are interested in forests for their own sake. In this program, participants receive some tools and instruction to help them pursue their interest in simply monitoring the health of the forests in their area. The conclusion that emerges here is that it is not likely that one type of program fits all. Landowners have a wide range of interests, and different groups will likely be more receptive to slightly different approaches. In addition, many landowners may evolve from one approach to another over time. Thus, for example, some may participate in Forest Keepers for a year or two and then become interested in becoming a Master Tree Farmer.

Somewhat in contrast to the above, one could recognize differences in landowner motivations but argue that rather than developing entirely different programs, there are advantages to incorporating diverse landowner interests within one program; with great attention given, however, to flexibility in stressing different program components for landowners groups with different interests. The Master Tree Farmer Program comes closest to this kind of example among those that were discussed above. This would also be conducive to approaches in which agencies work together, perhaps within the kind of a framework advocated by the MFPA's education committee, thereby decreasing the natural tendency for individual organizations to try and ‘do it all themselves' and in the process stretch themselves too thin.

Shifting further towards questions of program delivery, many would argue that what is important in delivering landowner education and assistance is to reach the landowners who are going to make decisions about resource management; or if they don't intend to do anything, to help them become more aware of the multiple array of values present in their forest lands. A key question regarding program delivery concerns how the organization providing the education or assistance positions itself to ‘be there at the right time.' As was mentioned during the Committee hearings, there is really very little way in Missouri to know exactly when a harvest takes place. State agencies such as the Missouri Department of Conservation are for the most part forced to guess how much harvesting takes place in the state in the short run. Moreover, forestland owners are not always interested in obtaining information about forest management until they are ready to do something with it. Inability to resolve this challenge of ‘being there at the right time' -- preferably at the inception of harvest planning, but at a minimum prior to the actual harvest itself -- to deliver information to landowners that might help them make informed management decisions has been one of the more intractable problems that has dogged the delivery of education and assistance programs to landowners in Missouri over the years.

One alternative that was suggested to the Governor's Advisory Committee involved establishing a requirement that a landowner file a notification of intent to harvest timber for sale. Such a harvest notification system could be administered by local MDC Forestry District offices, and would provide a mechanism whereby the agency could ensure that all landowners contemplating timber harvesting received information on sound forest management in a timely manner. At the same time, not knowing where harvesting occurs until long after the fact also severely complicates the task of assembling information for landscape-level assessments of resource availability and ecological integrity, and the harvest notification process would address that difficulty as well. It could also, but need not necessarily, be used to provide a mechanism to insure compliance with best management practices, should it be decided that the monitoring component of a program to ensure the use of BMPs for timber harvests be approached in that fashion.

Most proponents of harvest notification are impressed with its efficiency. They observe that it can conceivably do at least three things at once, and at a relatively modest cost of administration. Opponents, however, tend to view it as an unwarranted infringement on landowner privacy and decision making. Both views were expressed by members of the Governor's Advisory Committee, along with a more practical assessment that it was doubtful the idea would receive extensive support from a state legislature steeped in a strong property rights tradition.

When the two key features of program content and delivery are considered together, as they must be in any effective education or Environmental Assistance Office, and time is added to the equation, the following picture emerges in terms of the kinds of approaches that may be adopted in attempting to improve the status of landowner education and assistance for forestland owners in Missouri. The topic of landowner education and assistance is not a novel one in Missouri. For at least two decades, if not longer, it has been a subject of attention and an area in which it was agreed that improvements could be made. With respect to education, everyone favors a comprehensive program content capable of accommodating the wide range of objectives held by forestland owners. Interactive educational settings and field trips to sites where a range of forest management practices can be witnessed are also strongly favored by most. Unfortunately, the expense and logistics of putting together such programs (as, for example, the Master Tree Farmer program) have resulted in their reaching only a minuscule portion of forestland owners in the state.

With respect to technical assistance, one-on-one contacts with landowners in the field, clearly the most effective and desirable way to deliver assistance, is at the same time an extremely labor intensive and expensive endeavor. The resource foresters for the Missouri Department of Conservation are a group of dedicated professionals performing exceptionally with the resources they have. As noted earlier, however, a relatively low percentage of the state's NIPF owners are being reached, and many with whom contacts are made must wait for assistance. The recent creation of the Private Land Services Section within the agency will surely aid in alleviating immediate stresses, but it cannot be expected to resolve the current situation entirely. Finally, although some potential finding sourcers have been discussed, a realistic look at the financial horizon does not reveal a significant source of funding in the clouds.

Given this scenario, several factors related to program content, delivery, and cost merit brief attention. The Committee agrees that the primary focus of initial landowner education and assistance efforts should center on the source areas of the two mills. Their recent arrival, and the certainty that landowners will interpret the demand for chips emanating from the mills in different ways, would suggest that landowner education and assistance efforts to enhance the possibility of informed forest management choices begin at the source of the stimulus. With this established, two perspectives varying by time frame and extent of targeted landowners within this area exemplify possible ways of approaching the problem. The first reflects a short-term view and encompasses all forestland owners in the respective source areas. Given the uncertainty as to how landowners will respond over time to the demand for chips by the mills, and in light of the limited available information indicating that landowners in another state (Arkansas) did not practice good forest management in responding to chip mill demands, this more cautious approach would target all NIPF owners in the source areas to receive a modest packet of information on forest management that may better help them evaluate their options in interpreting and responding to demands for chips by the mills. In testimony to the Governor's Advisory Committee it was noted by several speakers that the Farm Service Bureau has the most comprehensive list of landowners ( e.g., farm/forest; resident/absentee; etc.) of which they were aware. Utilizing such a list, NIPF owners could be mailed the management information packet. This would ensure that in the short-run all landowners would receive at least some information which they can utilize to help construct a realistic picture of all their options that includes and situates the demands for wood chips. This is obviously a short-term potentially educational experience, but it does have the advantage that it can be accomplished completely.

A second perspective could be viewed as more long-term in nature and targets a sub-population within the two source areas. It would also allow continued emphasis on the development and delivery of high-quality education and assistance programs with the aim of maximizing the educational experience of forestland owners. Since larger acreages will contribute to a greater net impact when harvested in response to chip mill demands, and the resultant resource impacts will be proportionally greater than on smaller holdings, then the logic here is to target more in-depth educational and assistance to owners with larger landholdings. Thus, for example, landowners with a minimum of 40 acres (and perhaps a maximum on acreage size as well) could be targeted for educational and/or assistance programs. One way this could be done is through a pilot project. Both the short- and longer-term perspectives for structuring education and assistance efforts in the source areas for the chip mills were discussed by the Committee as exemplifying possible ways to approach the complex question of landowner education in the context of the chip mills in southeastern Missouri.

Finally, given the inability of any of the primary actors involved in landowner education and assistance to address this massive challenge alone, the strategy utilized by the Missouri Forest Products Association of bringing significant potential program delivery groups together to examine how a combined effort might be pursued would appear to be a worthy one. One advantage of a cooperative approach is that different participants may contribute specialized strengths and/or skills, and the resultant package may be stronger because of that. Thus, for example, University Extension, with an office in every county and expertise in the development of classroom interactive educational settings would appear poised to make a strong contribution to the combined product in those areas. The Missouri Department of Conservation clearly has significant expertise in the area of technology transfer when it comes to interactions in the field and demonstration of on-the-ground management practices. The Missouri Forest Products Association has a traditional relationship with loggers that could serve as a basis for taking the lead in logger training activities. And there is always a role for consulting foresters in the process. Blending the particular strengths of each participant organization in the cooperative task of landowner education and technical assistance will likely always remain a viable option.

Logger Training

Loggers are a critical part of the landscape of Missouri forestry. The logger is the intermediary between the forestland owner who decides to harvest timber and the sawmill or chip mill that processes the wood. It is the logger, moreover, who is directly responsible for ‘leaving' the environmental impacts of harvesting -- whether they be the ‘traces' of a properly conducted harvest (even careful selection harvesting leaves some impacts) or severe erosion from an improperly conducted clearcut. In addition, the logger frequently assumes a distinct position in the process of economic transactions through which wood flows from private forestlands to the mills. With respect to the chip mills, for example, it was noted earlier that landowners frequently sell their timber directly to loggers, who then deliver the wood to the mill as ‘gatewood,' in the process initiating a separate economic transaction in selling what is now their wood to the mill. When the chip mills contract directly with the forestland owner for the timber on his or her land, the logger does not assume this intermediate role of wood purchaser, but rather contracts with the mill strictly as a provider of services in harvesting the timber.

In either of the above roles, the logger plays a critical function in the flow of wood from the forestland owner to the mill. The character of logging practices conducted in the state will have a lot to do with whether sustainable forests become a reality in Missouri. With respect to the chip mills, given that they are more likely to encourage clearcutting than selective harvesting (this is not only true purely from a practical perspective, but was also borne out in the results of Gulden's modest study in Arkansas -- see Table 7 ), it follows that how loggers conduct such clearcuts is an important aspect of the ‘chip mill issue.'

On its field trip in June,1999, the Governor's Advisory Committee witnessed two contrasting examples of how clearcuts could be conducted. The Nelson tract, in which the harvesting operation was conducted under the oversight of the Missouri Department of Conservation, represented a good example of a well-conducted clearcut. Contoured to the landscape, it met virtually all of the criteria encompassed by the standard understanding of "best management practices" described earlier. The Funk Branch tract, however, left much to be desired in this regard. There was severe rutting from the skidders. Because the roads had been wet during at least part of the operations, much of the soil that was on the roadbed had been graded up onto the side of the road -- i.e., the soil (mud) that was pushed out of the roads was pushed up onto the landscape. Logs were left on the site that were cut but not skidded. Some small draws and ravines had been used to skid logs down, as opposed to pulling or yarding (i.e, cabling) logs out the ravines. The log landing sites were located too close to the creeks. And finally, there appeared to have been little or no pre-harvest plan or lay out at all, which would have included adequate skid trails and log landings.

The same contrast between sound and unsound logging practices applies to uneven-aged management techniques as well. In oak forests, for example, proper harvesting practices can ensure that the residual stand, including the critical regenerative component of young seedlings, is protected during logging operations. Unsound practices can damage such sites to such an extent that undesirable species end up dominating the regeneration process, in addition to those practices possibly contributing to other ecologically damaging outcomes like soil erosion. There is no question that an expert logger can extract timber from a stand while preserving both stand structure and the ecological integrity of the site., or can conduct a clearcut in a manner that ensures regenerative response while preserving its key ecological attributes. But this does not always happen with forest practices in Missouri. One way to increase the likelihood that it does is to ensure that all loggers are trained in proper forest management and logging practices. A second related way is through a process of logger licensing or certification, for which completion of some form of logger training program would invariably be a part. This subsection looks briefly at those two interrelated ideas.

It is estimated that there are between 800 and 900 loggers in Missouri. The Missouri Forest Products Association (MFPA) has instituted a voluntary training program for loggers in the state, for which they are awarded a certificate for successful completion. The program reflects MFPA's endorsement of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) of the American Forest andPaper Association, including SFI's logger outreach component. The logger training program of MFPA is divided into two segments: a) forest management; and b) best management practices, with particular emphasis given to controlling erosion from timber harvests. The principal activities that comprise the subject matter of the program include:

- Skid trail location

- Use of water bars

- Use of SMZ's (streamside zones)

- Buffer strips for visual management

- Seeding trails and landings

- Recognition of erosion potential

- Sediment runoff controls

- Den trees and other wildlife vegetation

Every effort is made to limit the size of training classes to approximately twelve individuals. This is considered desirable to facilitate a more interactive learning experience for loggers. MFPA sends out press releases to all rural and metropolitan newspapers to help loggers become informed about the timing and location of classes.

As of mid-1999, about 200 loggers in Missouri had completed training under the program In terms of their reactions to the experience, MFPA reports that when the class first started many loggers questioned how it could possibly benefit them, given their lengthly experience as ‘professionals' in the field; but that upon attending the program, most found that it had many valuable things to offer. The pattern has been that there is often a core group of experienced loggers who begin talking to their peers, and word of the program spreads.

The logger training program initiated by MFPA is voluntary in nature. Even though the Board of Directors and the Education Committee of MFPA has not wanted to be seen as forcing certification for loggers, MFPA does issue a certificate to show they have completed logger training. However, its voluntary nature, and the natural disinclination of many loggers to feel that they need to go through such an exercise, raises questions as to the kinds of incentives that would convince loggers to participate. As with most other matters involving compliance with rules or desired standards of behavior, the idea of providing voluntary incentives for participation in the training program is looked to first. Thus, for example, the Missouri Department of Conservation has announced its intention by July 2000 to use only trained loggers for timber harvested on state-owned public lands. A somewhat different kind of incentive may be found in the actions of the Missouri Wood Industry Trust, which is now offering a base rate of 20% of workman's compensation to loggers who have completed the training course, or who have made a commitment to complete the course. Prior to logger training, there was a 40-50% base rate for workmen's compensation. This is a significant savings and certainly serves to promote the program.

At the same time, it is generally agreed that there "needs to be teeth" in any program to formally certify loggers. Moreover, it has happened that loggers from out-of-state have come to work in Missouri, with little regard for BMPs or other sound forest management practices. Such situations could likely only be effectively addressed either by making training mandatory or requiring a license for loggers. A registration or licensing process can facilitate this end. A question remains, however, as to from where such a ‘push' should emanate.

In general, there are three critical questions that pertain to ensuring the integrity of any profession -- in this case, for the occupation of logging.

a) What are the standards according to which those providing logging

services can or should be measured?

b) Who sets such standards?

c) How is adherence to standards monitored and ensured?

These questions would pertain not only to loggers and the logging profession, but in effect to any profession. Shortly they will be discussed in relation to certification of professional foresters.

A first point when considering the idea of licensing loggers is that there is a fairly well-developed terminology associated with licensing and related activities. All such terms may be viewed as variations of the umbrella term "credentialing." Attention here focuses primarily on loggers; but the general set of terms described below was originally described with respect to foresters and will be considered relative to forestry as a distinct profession in the next subsection. Moreover, the terms described below may be viewed as characteristic of how any profession may be approached.

Credentialing programs have typically been described in three different ways -- as registration, licensing, or certification programs. Often the terms are used synonymously, but they actually reflect subtle differences, which are depicted in Table 18. Registration is generally a voluntary procedure, often administered by a state agency, whereby an applicant is recognized as having met certain professional standards defined in terms of education and/or experience. A person may practice his or her profession whether or not he or she is registered, but registration does confer a state-sanctioned status upon the individual confirming his/her abilities to practice that profession. When registration is mandatory, then it is customarily referred to as licensing.

Table 18. Forms of credentialing programs. (Source : French 1999)

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registration : Normally a voluntary procedure that requires a person to meet certain standards

- Procedure usually administered by a state agency

- Serves as means to identify individuals who have met specific standards of professional education and/or experience deemed necessary to provide services associated with that profession in that state.

- When mandatory, is referred to a licensing, and individuals who are registered are often said to be ‘licensed'

licensing : A mandatory procedure that requires a person to meet certain standards and grants them permission to perform certain acts

- Licenses usually issued by a government agency or by a legal authority

- Permission to practice usually withheld from unlicensed individuals

certification : Usually a voluntary procedure attesting that a person has attained certain standards.

- Certification usually conferred by a peer group or organization

- Persons may practice without certification; presumably certified individuals have a market advantage

_______________________________________________________

A license is a mandatory requirement that generally allows an individual to perform certain actions if he or she meets specific standards in doing so. Licenses are usually mandatory requirements if the person wishes to perform those actions (e.g., driver's license), and the individual is generally prohibited from performing the actions without a license. For some occupations, moreover, one is not normally allowed to function on that job without a license, e.g., cosmologists.

Certification is usually a voluntary process whereby a professional peer group or organization attests that an individual has attained certain standards in the performance of his or her job. Not being certified does not exclude one from practicing in that profession, but rather deprives that individual of the prestige, and likely the marketability, of a certified status.

In Missouri, professional licensing boards are situated within the Department of Economic Development's Division of Professional Registration. Generally there are representatives from the respective professions (to which the board applies) on each of the boards, and they determine training requirements, deal with complaints, and so on. One important consideration in any option involving establishing logger licensing is the need for an accurate definition of a logger. For example, someone who only cuts firewood for home use, or fells trees very sporadically for other purposes, would not seem to be the kind of person appropriate for licensing. One way to approach this is to base the definition of a logger on a certain minimum percentage of an individual's annual income being derived from logging.

Within the above landscape, there are a variety of ways in which the question of logger training and licensing may be approached. A voluntary industry-guided logger certification program could be established, with outside (e.g., Missouri Department of Conservation) monitoring of its effectiveness. Funding could come from fees from companies/individuals sending trainees to the program. On the other hand, logger licensing could be made mandatory, with an annual fee requirement for license renewal. In this case, MDC might be responsible for the program, with evaluative input supplied by industry. Moreover, any such mandatory requirements would need to be phased in to allow loggers to become adjusted to the new circumstances. In either of the above cases, continuing education and periodic recertification could be made requirements of the program. Enforcement could be provided through suspension or revocation of the logging license for blatant violations of logging practices. An appeal procedure for loggers should also be included in such a package.

Other variations are possible as well. Thus, for example, a licensing board for loggers could be established, develop standards and certify applicants, with the process itself being either mandatory or (in contrast to the norm for licensing) voluntary for loggers. A combination of voluntary industry-guided logger certification and state-administered logger licensing could be adopted. If the certification program were ‘worth its salt,' it would presumably exceed the requirements for a state-issued license. Finally, as opposed to regulating the profession per se (i.e., the actual practices involved in logging), attention could focus on regulating the use of the title (e.g., "Master Logger") associated with the profession.

Any package combining logger training and certification or licensing can only be effective if its existence and potential utility is recognized by the two other major sets of actors involved in the flow of wood from the forest to the mills -- i.e., the forestland owner and the chip mills (or sawmills) themselves. With respect to the former, this highlights the need for encouraging landowners to foster the motivations to hire trained and/or certified loggers when they decide to harvest timber from their lands. The wide variety of mechanisms described in previous sections relating to landowner incentives to adopt best management practices are relevant here (e.g., educational/assistance efforts, fiscal and tax incentives, regulatory mechanisms, etc.), since hiring competent loggers is the primary means the landowner has to accomplish this goal. Thus, for example, forestland owners could be given a tax credit for hiring certified loggers, or doing so could be required if that avenue were decided to be taken.

What could the chip mills (and other mills) offer in this regard? Industry cannot get together and collectively prohibit a group of people from bringing wood to the mills, due to anti-trust considerations. A given company can, however, declare that it will only purchase wood from, for example, certified loggers. As reported in the Arkansas study referred to earlier (Gulden 1999), several of the chip mills in Arkansas have refused to buy, or have given their loggers a sundown provision stating that after a certain point in time they will refuse to accept wood from logging operations, unless their loggers had been through the Arkansas Timber Purchasers Association's certified logger training course, which is primarily a BMP education. Thus in terms of the chip mills, any individual mill can insist that all contractors and those who bring gatewood to their facility have to be trained professionals. For the mills to do this voluntarily would preclude the alternative option of mandating that a certain percentage of wood brought to the mill have been harvested by trained loggers. It is to be hoped that the mills do indeed assume such a responsibility as part of their role as corporate citizens.

Forester Expertise and Certification

It has frequently been noted that most private forestland owners in Missouri are not receiving advice from professional foresters or land managers when it comes to harvesting timber on their land. Although not conclusively verified, it is widely accepted that less than 10% of owners are receiving any form of professional assistance, either in developing management plans for their forests or in conducting specific harvests.

Potential remedies to this problem mirror those described at the end of the preceding subsection when considering how to encourage landowners to employ licensed loggers. In effect, the two questions are closely linked, along with the need for landowners to ensure the use of best management practices in harvesting timber from their lands. For presumably a certified forester, in proving advice to a landowner harvesting timber, would seek to employ licensed loggers who, having been trained appropriately, would use BMPs when conducting timber operations. Thus the same array of educational and technical assistance strategies, incentives, and/or regulatory means relevant to encouraging landowners to use BMPs, or to hire licensed loggers, would merit consideration as potential ways to encourage landowners to employ a professional forester when harvesting timber form their lands.

At the same time, when forestland owners do seek the services of a ‘professional' forester, the questions remains as to how they know they are getting someone who is qualified to provide the services they expect. Like most people, they may seek advice from friends about whom to recruit; or they might check in the yellow pages, and so on. For many professions, that assurance comes from a state or association credentialing program in which standards for the profession have been defined.

A few facts in addition to those discussed in relation to logger licensing/certification merit attention when considering credentialing for professional foresters. In Missouri, professional registration covers a variety of professions including architects, cosmetologists, embalmers, geologists, interpreters, surveyors, and so on. A variety of factors may stimulate the state licensing or registration of a profession, including the desire of members to set standards for their practices and conduct, the perceived advantages that certification would give the profession in terms of public visibility, and as a means of excluding those who claim to be members of the profession but who have not met its specified standards. In Missouri, a particular profession that has a credentialing program may or may not issue sanctions for practicing without a licence (or certification). Some professions have fairly stiff penalties, while others have none.

Forester credentialing programs exist in seventeen states and have been proposed in several others. All are called either ‘licensing' or ‘registration' programs, with only one referred to as ‘certification.' Although they vary widely, most contain a mix of the following elements :

Ten of the sixteen state credentialing programs for foresters that are now in effect are mandatory in nature, meaning that anyone offering forestry services to the public must be registered or licensed. Six states have voluntary credentialing programs. Most of the latter, however, do require licensing or registration for use of the title of registered or licensed forester. In North Carolina, moreover, registration is mandatory for consulting foresters, but voluntary for others.

Almost all states require that applicants have attained a B.S. in Forestry. Some states allow experience to be substituted for part of the educational requirement. On an overall basis, most states require a minimum of two to three years of forestry experience in addition to the B.S. degree. In ten states, the applicant must pass a written or oral examination; and ten states have a continuing education requirement as well. The fee structure for forestry credentialing programs varies considerably. Arkansas has the lowest combined fee structure ($7.50 application; $15 annual). California has the highest fee structure ($200 application; $95 annual). In most states annual fees range between $20 and $40; and license renewal periods range from one to two years, although they may be as long as four years.

The Society of American Foresters (SAF) supports the establishment of the above kinds of state programs to provide credentialing for the forestry profession. The society also has developed its own program for credentialing of foresters. The SAF Certified Forester Program was initiated in 1994 as a means of identifying foresters who meet certain educational and experiential requirements (Bourgeois 1999). Certified foresters must have earned a B.S. from an SAF-accredited curriculum or a substantially equivalent degree from a non-SAF accredited curriculum. The curriculum must demonstrate a balance among four areas of study : forest ecology and biology; measurements of forest resources; management of forest resources; and forest resource policy and administration. In addition, five years qualifying professional forestry-related experience is required; and certified foresters must agree to complete sixty hours of continuing education every three years. Although the program meets or exceeds requirements of many of the state programs, at present it does not contain an examination component. The latter is currently under consideration for inclusion, possibly as a national test with a regionally specific subsection. The fees for the Certified Forester Program include an application fee of $75, an annual fee of $15, and a recertification fee (every three years) of $50. Finally, the program is voluntary and open both to SAF members and to non-members. The program calls upon its members to abide by current program requirements and procedures for recertification, maintain continuing professional development, and conduct all practices in a responsible, professional manner consistent with state and federal regulations governing environmental quality and forest management practices. Currently there are approximately 750 SAF-certified foresters in the United States and Canada.

The Governor's Advisory Committee strongly endorses the establishment of a certification program for professional foresters in Missouri; and also supported the establishment of a licensing board through which the program would be administered. Its task would be to define areas of professional responsibility and to establish standards and guidelines for applicants. Board members would likely include the Missouri Society of American Foresters (MOSAF), the Missouri Consulting Foresters Association, the Missouri Forest Products Association (MFPA), and the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC).

In summary, the credentialing of professional foresters has widespread support within the forestry community in Missouri. The professional forester benefits by the assurance that individuals with inadequate training or skills are not representing themselves to prospective clients as possessing the credentials of a qualified forester. The public benefits from the assurance that in securing the services of a licensed, registered, or certified forester, that individual has met the state's or profession's standards for experience, education, and is continuing to do so. The overall result can only enhance the possibility of achieving long-term sustainability of Missouri forests.

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