Approximately 18 percent of California’s timberlands are owned by small, non-industrial private landowners (CAL FIRE 2017). Many of these landowners have ecological conservation, restoration, and resilience goals; which are driven by concerns about wildfire, climate change, drought, and tree mortality.
Forest landowners face huge challenges, considering the condition of California forests. Between 2020 and 2022, more than seven million acres have burned across the state, in 22,904 wildfire incidents. Forty-five people lost their lives in these wildfires, and 15,838 structures were either damaged or destroyed (CAL FIRE 2020-2022 Incident Archive).
Since January 2020, the UC ANR Forest Stewardship Education Program has engaged more than 350 participants in 17 workshops with the goals of educating forest landowners to better understand, manage, and protect their forests by developing a forest management plan, implementing vegetation management projects, engaging with natural resource professionals, and taking advantage of cost-share opportunities that can help them meet their management goals.
Photo 1: Forest Stewardship Workshop Participant Field Day. Photo by Kim Ingram
In 2021, we conducted interviews of Forest Stewardship participants to better understand their concerns and management goals. Along with data from a pre-workshop survey, we characterized landowners’ feelings about their forests, identified their concerns and barriers, and described what management activities they were doing.
Landowners expressed their enjoyment of the plants and animals they encounter and that they don’t mind putting in the hours of work required to meet their goals.
“We all have a strong emotional attachment to the land and so that's the thing that drives us to work hard to maintain it and keep it healthy.” Participant
They expressed a strong desire to have their forest be a legacy that they pass on to others.
“We want to be able to pass on to the next generation. It's family history.” Participant
Participants frequently mentioned ‘cleaning-up’ the forest, hand thinning, pile-burning and activities focused on water quality or quantity as activities they have undertaken to work towards their forest health goals.
Photo 2: Thinning and piling. Photo submitted by workshop participant
Access to technical information is vital to forest landowners.
“Those forestry workshops have been huge for me. You know I didn't know what I didn't know, and to be able to get an understanding about the issues I should be thinking about, it's a big responsibility.” Interview participant
Interviewees mentioned several barriers to implementing their goals including cost, time, lack of a qualified workforce, and needing to get agreement on management activities from multiple owners.
“You know it sounds a little easier when you only have five acres, but when you're talking about 100 acres, it starts to become very costly.” Interview participant
Overwhelmingly, landowners participating in the workshop series have paid for the work done on their properties themselves. Though many mentioned that they were interested in applying for cost-share programs in the future, some mentioned uncertainty over available funding and application processes as a barrier.
Landowners communicated an awareness of the need for forest management and planning, and expressed interest in engaging with natural resource professionals to provide technical and financial assistance. They also support the need for more education and outreach, and a greater understanding and recognition of natural resource professional experience and expertise within their local communities. Lastly, landowners expressed a deeper value and appreciation of the need and importance of stewardship which may broaden their knowledge, skills, and abilities to manage their forest lands for generations. Interview results will be shared with partner agencies and used to improve program offerings and forest landowner assistance.
Kim Ingram
Forest Stewardship Education Coordinator
Univ. of California ANR
Email: kcingram@ucanr.edu