Natural Resource Management

In Jewish tradition, Challah is a loaf of yeast-risen bread, often braided, blessed and then consumed on Sabbaths and holidays. Every aspect of Challah – from its making to its eating – is replete with wisdom tradition and reminders about our overarching duty to steward Creation. The burgeoning protests against Dominion Resources and its partners over the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina is a kind of community Challah with righteousness at its core.

“Decisions by the more than 140,000 families in our state who own woodlands about how they use these lands — and whether or not they convert them to other uses — is a matter of significant public interest and environmental concern,” said Robert Klee ’99 M.E.S., ’04 J.D., ’05 Ph.D., commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).

When a fire sweeps through a forest, or a lumber company strips an area of all of its trees, the greenery will eventually grow back. Or so many forestry researchers thought. But a new study in the tropics suggests that these second-growth forests can look very different from what they replaced—a finding that may cause biologists to wonder what biodiversity will be restored and forestry experts to reconsider how much they should or can intervene in the regrowth.

As California battles its worst drought in 1,000 years — and after massive wildfires swept across the state for two consecutive summers — a number of tribe members, scientists and U.S. Forest Service officials are working to revive traditional Native American land management practices that some believe could help contain the blazes and lessen effects of the drought. ...

When Jack Connelly first began studying the greater sage grouse in Idaho in the late 1970s, "it was not unusual to see 500 in a single flock," says the biologist, who is retired from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "Today, it would be unusual to see 200." That dramatic decline has made the sage grouse—a large, pointy-tailed bird with showy mating habits—the subject of one of the biggest endangered species battles ever in the United States.

Community forests are presented as a wealth creation strategy for rural communities. The Wealth Creation Framework offers a template for describing forms of capital associated with community forests and discussing their potential as a wealth creation strategy. The paper profiles six projects across northern New England and describes how investments by rural communities in local ownership and management of forestland build capital.