Of pines and pixels

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Winter 2001 by Foster, Charles H W, Cranch, Edmund T

Distance Learning and Forestry in New England

n December 1999, a unique educational initiative came into being, the product of collaboration between the New England Governors' Conference, the Cambridge, Mass.-based Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the U.S. Forest Service. Called ENFOR for "environmental forestry," the project's intent has been to explore whether distance learning via home computer could be used to improve management of New England's 700,000 privately owned, nonindustrial forestlands. Private owners of all kinds control 96 percent of the region's total forest resource.

Although all six New England states have active forestry assistance and incentive programs, most are aimed at owners of more than 10 acres of forestland, since these larger tracts seem to lend themselves more readily to professional management.

The target of the ENFOR initiative has been small forests, especially those located in New England's urbanizing areas. Small forests-nine acres or lessrepresent two-thirds of New England's privately owned, nonindustrial forestlands. Though they are growing steadily in number due to fragmentation from development and turnover in ownership, these small woodlands tend to fall between the cracks of conventional assistance programs.

Urban emigrees, often the owners of forestland more by the accident of a real estate transaction than by deliberate intent, need special services to compensate for their fundamental lack of awareness of forests and forestry. On the most practical level, the urban landowners may be unaware, for example, that they could qualify for a substantial reduction in local property taxes if they commit to long-term, professional planning and management of the forest property. These forestland owners, many of them young, relatively affluent and technologically savvy, appear well-suited for learning at home via computer.

With an advisory board that is a virtual Who's Who of New England forestry and educational leadership, ENFOR began assembling an accurate profile of the region's nonindustrial private forestland owners. From this profile, ENFOR learned that the owners of small forest tracts have diverse backgrounds, occupations and interests. They are likely to be in middle- to upper-income brackets and they own forestland simply because it is part of their home. Aesthetics and recreation, rather than income, seem to be their prime motivations. .

Meanwhile, census data suggest that more than one in three U.S. households had a computer at home as of October 1997, and the proportion has presumably grown significantly since then.

Surveying the Land

With the help of cooperating forestry organizations and agencies in the six New England states, ENFOR in the spring of 2000 began canvassing forest landowners to determine their interest in distance learning services. Nearly 10 percent of the 6,000 owners surveyed responded. Respondents seemed hungry for information on all eight of the topics ENFOR asked about: forest improvement, ecology, wildlife, water, recreation, income, protection for the future and available programs. Two out of three respondents said they would be willing to pay for such services. Four out of five reported having already done some forest management or "woodscaping" (aesthetic improvement) on their property. All in all, the results suggested that these landowners would promptly put into practice advice obtained by computer.

ENFOR next asked its Internet advisor, James N. Levitt of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, to arrange for a survey of existing forestry distance learning sites both in New England and elsewhere. Of 66 sites examined in the United States and Canada, 31 offered either online courses for credit or courses with online components relating to forestry or forest environment. Two Northeast course sites-the University of Moncton's NTIC program and the University of Maine's Yankee Woodlot program-seemed relevant to ENFOR's aims and objectives, but both programs are oriented primarily toward rural landowners.

Planting a Seed

With these findings in hand-and the support of several regional organizations and institutions-ENFOR in May 2000 convened a New England colloquy on distance learning and the forest environment. Participants included forestry officials, forestry educators and woodland owners from each of the New England states. The consensus was that ENFOR should move swiftly to develop and try out one or more forest environment distance learning courses.

With help from Brian Donahue, a Brandeis University environmental historian and founder of Land's Sake, a Weston, Mass.-based agricultural and forest management nonprofit, ENFOR created an introductory forest environment course for the home computer. Framed as a simulated, half-hour walk through a suburban New England woodlot, the course emphasizes the need to fully understand forest processes and linkages, and encourages active, private stewardship by the landowner. The course is expected to be offered to the public early next year, first through the Lincoln Institute's Lincoln Education On-line (LEO) and later via a network of cooperating websites throughout New England.