United States 

Department of

Agriculture

Forest 

Service

Southwestern

Region

FR-R3-16-1

December 2009

Collaborative Forest 

Restoration Program: 

Lessons Learned
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Printed on recycled paper – December 2009
Collaborative Forest Restoration 

Program: Lessons Learned

Southwestern Region

Reviewed by: __/s/ Walter Dunn

WALTER DUNN

_______________________

Program Manager, Southwestern Region

Approved by: _/s/ Don Bright

DON BRIGHT

__________________________

Acting Director, Forest Management, Forest 

Health, Cooperative and International Forestry, 

Southwestern Region

Approved by: _/s/ C. L. Newman

CORBIN NEWMAN

_______________________

Regional Forester, Southwestern Region

.

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 1

Executive Summary

Authorized by Congress in 2000, the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) was 

designed to encourage joint problem solving though diverse partnerships that design and 

implement forest restoration projects and provide jobs and training to local communities. Since 

then, annual Federal appropriations of up to $5 million have produced results both tangible and 

intangible. More than 17,000 acres of forest and woodland have been restored; 129 projects have 

been funded; and about 300 jobs have been created. More important, perhaps, are the program’s 

less quantifiable results, as an atmosphere of litigation and acrimony surrounding resource issues 

has given way to a spirit of cooperation.

Based on detailed input from numerous program participants, this report provides an overview of 

the program’s effectiveness since 2000. It looks in detail at the following program aspects, and 

incorporates a set of lessons learned for each.

Planning and Setting Goals: It is vital to incorporate the best available science when 

planning restoration projects. Working across jurisdictional boundaries is essential to the 

design of restoration efforts aimed at producing multiple benefits, especially when it comes to 

restoring watershed health and historic fire regimes. The CFRP Technical Advisory Panel, 

which reviews project proposals and makes funding recommendations to the Forest Service,

has proven to be an effective means to build agreement among diverse interest groups, but 

integrating CFRP projects into the program of work and priorities of land management 

agencies has been difficult. 

Communities and Collaboration: Good training and practice in how collaboration works 

are essential at both the program and project levels. This preparation is an important step in 

assuring that all project participants clearly understand how their work will dovetail with that 

of others.

Training Workers - and the Public: Education is key to restoration projects. But it can’t 

focus only on the science of restoration. Effective education needs to draw a connection 

between ecology and economics, especially by assuring that key workers have the 

management skills needed to oversee personnel and attend to business details.

Fostering Business Sustainability: A grant program does not and cannot substitute for true 

sustainability of small businesses. It can, however, promote sustainability by encouraging 

business owners to train workers, seek alliances, and work with land management agencies to 

promote local sourcing for other projects.

Monitoring and Evaluation: Defined goals and dedicated resources are essential to an 

effective monitoring program. Plans for monitoring need to include sufficient budgeting, a 

clear delineation of who will do what, and a transparent means by which data can be stored, 

accessed, and used.

Program Infrastructure and Administration: The Forest Service has adopted and 

implemented virtually all the recommendations of the CFRP Technical Advisory Panel that 

evaluates the grant proposals. That history has proven to be an excellent way to earn the trust 

and continued participation and support of panel members.

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 3

Introduction: From Effigies to Efficacy 

New Mexico’s Collaborative Forest Restoration Program was born of conflict and crisis. It was 

created, in 2000, because a constellation of factors had caused both the ecological health of many 

of the state’s wild lands and the social and economic health of many of its small towns and 

villages to become severely dysfunctional. A century or more of wildfire suppression, logging, 

livestock grazing, and other intensive land use practices had undermined the health of many of 

the state’s public lands—Federal, state, and tribal. They were subject to erosion, unnaturally 

severe wildfires, degradation of wildlife habitat, and invasion by nonnative species. Rural 

communities, meanwhile, were also suffering. Due to environmental regulations, litigation, 

resource depletion, limited access to supply, and competition with other interests, many 

communities were increasingly unable to continue traditional activities such as livestock grazing 

and small-scale logging on public lands. Following a Federal decision to list the Mexican spotted 

owl as an endangered species, and a long period of overharvesting, the regional timber industry 

collapsed in the 1990s. Sawmills were closed; jobs were scarce, incomes low, and social ills 

widespread.

These paired problems—the ecological and the economic—fueled heated public debates in which 

the issues often appeared irreconcilable. Some environmentalists opposed even such small-scale 

traditional forest uses as firewood gathering; residents of land grant communities in the northern 

part of the state hanged effigies of well known environmentalists; the Forest Service, hampered 

by budget cuts and litigation, appeared stuck in a mire of analysis and planning. Rational 

discourse seemed impossible. 

So did progress.

“We hassled about one thing 

and another,” recalls a longtime area resident and activist, 

“and in the meantime, nothing 

got done in the woods.”

Against this backdrop, 

Congress passed the 

Community Forest 

Restoration Act in 2000, 

which authorized up to $5 

million each year for a 

Collaborative Forest 

Restoration Program (CFRP) 

that would fund collaborative, 

community level projects 

aimed at ecological restoration 

projects on public lands in 

New Mexico. CFRP grants

were authorized for up to 

$360,000 over 4 years. The act 

explicitly linked ecology and economy by proposing that the solutions to many of the state’s land 

use problems lay in reinvigorating rural economies based on local resources, especially wood 

products made from small diameter trees that were abundant but had little value in the traditional 

lumber market. It also broke new ground by making it possible to fund restoration work across 

Figure 1. Restoration work by CFRP recipient Taos Business 

Alliance
Introduction: From Effigies to Efficacy

4 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

jurisdictional boundaries; areas to be treated could be on public land managed by any agency, 

whether Federal, tribal, state, or local. The act established a technical advisory panel (panel) to 

evaluate CFRP proposals and make recommendations to the Forest Service on which ones best 

met the purposes of the program. The panel, composed of Federal, tribal, and state land managers, 

independent scientists, and conservation, commodity, and local community interests, was directed 

to use a consensus-based, decisionmaking process to develop those recommendations.

It was apparent from the outset that a 

yearly appropriation of $5 million, 

however wisely and efficiently 

allocated, would never be enough to 

solve the state’s intertwined ecological 

and economic problems. After nearly a 

decade, though, it is clear that the CFRP 

has been a notable success in restoring 

some areas to ecological health and in 

increasing the economic health of some 

communities. More than 17,000 acres of 

forest, woodland, and riparian areas 

have been treated, mostly through the 

thinning of small diameter trees. The 

health of remaining trees and understory 

vegetation has improved; the risk of 

severe fires in some areas has been 

reduced. Meanwhile, hundreds of jobs 

have been created. 

Businesses that would perhaps have 

foundered without Federal grant support 

have been able to survive. Members of 

numerous youth groups have found 

employment and educational 

opportunity through participating in the 

work of forest thinning, re-vegetation, 

and monitoring. The increased capacity 

of small business owners to apply for 

and receive Federal grants is 

demonstrated by the fact that 25 percent 

of the Forest Service biomass utilization 

grants have gone to the Southwestern

Region in recent years.

But the program’s main benefit may be 

its least tangible: the increased trust that 

it has engendered among groups that 

were once at loggerheads. That’s a 

benefit whose effects can be seen well 

past the boundaries of specific CFRP 

CFRP by the Numbers

Project proposals submitted, 2001-2009............ 318

Projects funded, 2001-2009............................... 131

Federal and non-Federal 

investment (2001-2008)......................$42.6 million

Acres treated by beginning of 2009.... about 17,000

Jobs created, 2001-2008 .......................... about 300

Lands Treated by Ecological Type

Mixed conifer or ponderosa pine forest............61%

Piñon-juniper woodland....................................22%

Lowland riparian (bosque) or other..................17%

Lands Treated by Jurisdiction

Forest Service ...................................................38%

BLM (3), BoR (1) ..............................................3%

Tribal.................................................................15%

State ....................................................................5%

Local ...................................................................4%

Mixed (cross-jurisdictional treatments)............11%

N/A (e.g., planning, training, equipment) ........24%

363 Project Partners

Businesses............................................................ 98

Tribes................................................................... 24

Non-Governmental Organizations..................... 103

Schools/Universities............................................ 46

Local Governments.............................................. 48

State Agencies...................................................... 30 

Federal Agencies/Organizations.......................... 14

Associations........................................................... 5

Youth Participation

Percent of projects involving youth in monitoring, 

education, and restoration fieldwork:

2001-2004.........................................................49%

2005-2008.........................................................78%
Introduction: From Effigies to Efficacy

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 5

projects; within New Mexico’s forestry and land use communities, it has created a groundswell of 

collaborative thinking and feeling that is likely to affect many other acres and communities.

“I think the CFRP has helped promote better understanding and mutual respect,” says one Forest 

Service employee. “The one-time adversaries are realizing that they have to work together to craft 

a successful proposal. If we had CFRP in the 1990s, we would have seen less of that

brinksmanship. I’m not saying it’s the end-all, but it’s gone a long way toward building respect 

and cooperation.” 

This report summarizes some of the key lessons from the Collaborative Forest Restoration 

Program. It details the program’s successes and failures, with the intention of offering some 

recommendations that may be of use to those planning similar programs elsewhere. Though much 

of the CFRP story is unique to New Mexico, those who have compiled this report believe that 

what they’ve learned though hard-won experience may help others deal with their own land use 

problems by linking economy and ecology through a collaborative approach. As a result of the 

success of the CFRP in New Mexico, Senator Bingaman (D-NM) introduced the “Forest 

Landscape Restoration Act of 2008” (Title IV, Pub. L. No. 111-11), which creates a Collaborative 

Forest Landscape Restoration Program that builds on the collaborative CFRP approach to address 

larger landscapes. The new program would be an important beneficiary of these “Lessons 

Learned” from the CFRP that preceded it.

“It is one of the most innovative and effective programs we have out there. It’s 

a great model—not perfect, but it’s working very well. Nationwide, there’s a 

huge need to get forest restoration work done in a manner that builds 

community and business buy-in, and this does that.”

—Maia Enzer, Participant, CFRP 5-Year Report to Congress
Introduction: From Effigies to Efficacy

6 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

The Community Forest 

Restoration Act of 2000: Highlights

These are the goals laid out in CFRP’s enabling legislation:

• Promote healthy watersheds and reduce the threat of large, high-intensity 

wildfires, insect infestations, and disease in the forests of New Mexico.

• Improve forest ecosystem functions and enhance plant and wildlife 

biodiversity.

• Improve communication and joint problem-solving among individuals and 

groups who are interested in restoring the diversity and productivity of 

forested watersheds in New Mexico.

• Improve the use of, or add value to, small diameter trees.

• Encourage sustainable communities and forests through collaborative 

partnerships.

• Provide a venue to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate ecologically sound 

forest restoration techniques.
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 7

The Science of Restoration: 

Planning and Setting Goals

The CFRP is based on the principle of restoration—a complicated idea, but one that revolves 

around the concept of restoring the functions and resilience of the ecosystem. For southwestern 

ponderosa pine forests, that generally means fairly open stands with a grassy or shrubby 

understory and relatively frequent fires; for riparian areas, it means some echo of a natural flood 

cycle that spreads nutrients and seeds and provides good germination conditions for such native 

plants as cottonwoods and willows. For New Mexico’s widespread piñon-juniper habitats, 

previous conditions and potential goals are often a good deal less clear. Indeed, well-meaning 

ecologists can argue (and often have, throughout the program’s early history) long and hard about 

just what conditions once prevailed—or ought to prevail once again—on a particular tract of land.

But there are some broad points of agreement, and in general people have come to agree that 

successful CFRP projects are ones that try to restore at least some similarity to what a place was 

once like. There are practical reasons for this: open ponderosa forests, as opposed to those with 

dense thickets of small trees, pose less fire risk to nearby communities and often support healthier 

growth of herbaceous plants; cottonwoods and willows often furnish better wildlife habitat, and 

more attractive riparian areas for human recreation, than nonnative species such as tamarisk and 

Russian olive.

With the assistance of the CFRP, a relatively high degree of scientific agreement on these issues 

in southwestern wooded areas has made the practice of applying science to project planning and 

implementation easier than it might be in other regions where such consensus is lacking. An 

example is the development of the New Mexico Forest Restoration Principles, in which a wide 

variety of stakeholders used the consensus-building process of the CFRP panel to negotiate 

agreement. But that doesn’t mean this application is easy, particularly when it comes to broader 

landscapes. Most CFRP projects to date have been implemented on relatively small landscapes on 

the scale of a few hundred acres. In a state where the Forest Service has reported that 3.3 million 

acres of forest in its jurisdiction alone are in need of restoration treatments, CFRP projects have 

affected the landscape only in a localized way—by protecting a community watershed from 

severe wildfire, for example, or by improving wildlife habitat.

The CFRP is a small program whose grants are not sufficient to treat areas of more than a few 

hundred acres. In addition, treatments that truly accomplish restoration—for example, by 

conducting prescribed burns or re-establishing native plant species, not just thinning overly dense 

trees—tend to have a high per-acre cost. In the early days of the CFRP, the program supported 

some projects that were aimed at both planning and implementing restoration treatments. But the 

complexity of the NEPA process, which often involved unforeseen delays, made it difficult or 

impossible to both plan and implement projects within a grant’s 4-year time limit. As a result, the 

Forest Service recommends that CFRP grant applicants focus either on planning or 

implementation. They can submit a grant proposal for the planning phase, and then submit a 

subsequent proposal to implement that plan when it has been completed. Implementation 

proposals must be “NEPA ready.”

The CFRP staff and members of the panel have come to recognize the limitations of the smallscale, highly localized approach. As a result, the Forest Service now solicits CFRP proposals for 

landscape-scale, cross-jurisdictional planning projects. But small-scale projects are highly 

appropriate, and important, in many places, such as in urban watersheds and riparian bosque 
The Science of Restoration: Planning and Setting Goals

8 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

woodlands. In any event, financial 

limitations dictate that projects 

funded solely by the CFRP do 

need to remain small. The tension 

about the scale of projects is likely 

to remain and to contribute to an 

additional imperative to 

collaborate and be creative, for it is 

by leveraging grant funding that 

project managers may be able to 

treat larger areas than they could 

through a single CFRP grant.

The extent to which panel 

members should dictate what 

they’re looking for in an effective 

proposal is another point of 

tension. Most don’t want to be in 

the business of dictating 

restoration priorities for an entire 

state, but some project proponents have felt blind-sided when their proposal was not funded 

because it didn’t seem to fit priorities that were not clearly articulated in the request for proposals 

(RFP) process. It’s a problem that has only grown as more well-planned and well-written 

proposals are received every year, since the inevitable result is that quite a few good projects have 

to be rejected. A significant contribution of the CFRP has been the capacity building that has 

occurred on the part of the grant applicants in New Mexico as a result of the CFRP proposal 

review process. The number and proportion of Forest Service biomass utilization grants awarded 

to applicants from New Mexico is one example of that increased capacity.

“The competition is really tough,” says one Forest Service official. “To get a project funded now, 

you have to have really good writing skills and have the project really together.”

Whatever the merits of particular projects, the big picture—the landscape-scale picture—does 

remain very much on the minds of many panel members.

“The projects are still one or more levels of magnitude below the scale of the problem,” says one 

former member. “But you have to start with something that works. They have demonstrated that a 

collaborative approach can break some of the gridlock around natural resource issues. I think the 

chances are good that as the program grows, the projects will coalesce and have an effect on the 

larger landscape.”

One way to do that, some argue, is to ensure that fire is integrated as thoroughly as possible into 

CFRP projects and the program’s strategic planning. Most nondesert ecosystems in New Mexico 

have natural fire regimes whose absence causes significant problems, such as buildups of fuels or 

changes in the composition of plant communities. Yet wildfires often aren’t allowed to burn, 

because they’re too risky, given current conditions of dense fuels and widespread human 

development. The threat they represent, especially in an era when climate change may be making 

Figure 2. Baseline data collection in the Mesa Poleo CFRP
The Science of Restoration: Planning and Setting Goals

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 9

southwestern forests warmer and drier, is to some a call to arms that argues in favor of more 

intensive strategic planning.

“Clearly, getting fire back into the system is the key,” says one ecologist who has participated in 

CFRP projects. “Otherwise, you’ve got a mechanical substitute for a natural process. That’s too 

expensive and not ecologically desirable. But we can’t simply set forests on fire given current 

conditions. It’s a difficult challenge. One solution is to place treatments strategically over the 

landscape so that fire, rather than chain saws, can manage the landscape.”

Panel members and project 

proponents do say there’s a strong 

interest in making restoration 

prescriptions as science based and

collaborative as possible—in other 

words, in thinking them through as 

thoroughly as possible before work 

begins. In some cases there has been

a disconnect between the often 

excellent theoretical underpinnings 

for restoration work and the ground 

level application of those ideas. More 

involvement of university groups, 

such as the Forest and Watershed 

Research Institute at New Mexico 

Highlands University, has helped fill 

that gap.

So could an increased focus on 

developing agreement about 

restoration prescriptions. The New 

Mexico Forest Restoration Principles (see sidebar), completed in 2006 as an outgrowth of the 

CFRP’s collaborative work, provide a good template for this. As one long-time CFRP participant 

has put it, “bringing people in on the front end virtually evaporates opposition at the tail end.”

Lessons Learned

Be open to new, holistic ways of thinking about the costs and benefits of restoration. Though the 

initial costs of restoration treatments are often higher than those associated with simple fuels 

reduction, the benefits of restoration that accrue in the form of wildlife habitat, carbon 

sequestration, community values, and the sustainability of local businesses mean that restoration 

is, over the long run, a more cost-effective approach. Appropriate definitions of such terms as 

“sustainability” may help to quantify those benefits. The development and use of predictive tools 

or models can help to evaluate the relative costs and benefits of restoration versus simple fuels 

reduction. The use of best value and stewardship contracting agreements may provide the Forest 

Service with additional tools to address these issues.

Figure 3. Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo’s CFRP project restored 

riverine cottonwood forest along the Rio Grande.
The Science of Restoration: Planning and Setting Goals

10 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

Think across landscapes, even if they’re multijurisdictional. For example, it might be 

appropriate to use watersheds or “firesheds” as planning units. Remember that landscapes are 

social and economic, as well as ecological, and that any list of priorities for treatment should 

incorporate all those elements. Size does matter—it’s important to decide on the appropriate scale 

for treatments and to understand how the work done can fit into the broader landscape.

Make the NEPA process as collaborative as possible. Incorporate communities and key 

stakeholders in the NEPA and project planning process from the beginning. Begin working with 

district rangers, program coordinators, and other officials early in the process. It’s critical to have 

multiple agency staff members involved in planning to ensure continuity in case of personnel 

changes.

Create a detailed work plan that realistically assesses the costs of the work to be done. Don’t 

overpromise what can be accomplished in a particular timeframe or for a particular amount of 

money. For example, an effective proposal needs to be accurate in its assessment of the market 

value of small diameter timber harvested from a dense stand.

Develop prescriptions that incorporate as many stakeholder values as possible from the 

beginning. Written prescriptions cannot anticipate every problem that arises during 

implementation, but future conflict can be reduced if the prescriptions are developed using an 

open, collaborative process.

Look for planning and funding linkages. There are numerous other sources of funding that 

might be used to complement and expand upon CFRP-funded projects, such as community 

wildfire protection programs, Section 319 funding provided by the Federal EPA under the Clean 

Water Act, funding from the Secure Rural Schools Act, and others. Leveraging one grant by 

writing and winning other approvals is often the only way to get work done across a broader 

landscape.

In His Own Words: John Ussery

We set out on this project with three major objectives. First, we want to develop businesses. The 

mill here used to get wood from large timber sales. But nobody could make it work in the long 

run. We think that this forest can provide jobs and lumber. If properly maintained, it will provide 

a renewable supply of water that in the future will be even more valuable than oil. 

Second, we want to increase community capacity. There’s a new set of tools that really make it 

possible to participate at a new level of understanding about how to manage a forest sustainably. 

We’ve hired the ForestERA project at Northern Arizona University and got them to include 

74,000 acres in the Vallecitos area in their macro landscape assessment of northern New Mexico. 

But we’d like to use similar tools at a micro level, too. We want to use these tools to be able to 

see both the risks and the opportunities. This will help us determine the availability of material 

and how much it will cost to remove it. Basically what we’re doing is building community 

capacity for science-based forest management.

Third, we want to stop exporting youth from our rural communities. We’re training kids to do 

scientific monitoring. We trained eleven 14- to 16-year-olds, and five of them were hired to do 

monitoring on a CFRP project here. We’re hoping to provide them with a path to careers.
The Science of Restoration: Planning and Setting Goals

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 11

There’s no loose change in these communities. The efforts before to get things going here have 

led to failure. The discouragement level is really high. The CFRP is important not only as a 

reality, but as a symbol. It’s a key grant to have. It’s a program that solves a real world problem. 

We’d been crippled by this legal mess for far too long. We believe there’s a win-win, a way to 

preserve the forest while creating jobs for the community. The CFRP is ideal for that focus. The 

emphasis on collaboration is really important. People participating in the program are willing to 

put their process where their mouth is. They’ve been so hamstrung by the legal process that if 

they can get all the stakeholders signed on in advance, they can actually do something. We’re all 

coming to the conclusion that proactive is the only way to go.

John Ussery is program director with Las Comunidades, a nonprofit organization whose mission 

is to provide jobs and business opportunities in the area of the Vallecitos Federal Sustained Yield 

Unit on the Carson National Forest.

New Mexico Forest Restoration Principles

Developed by a collaborative group of 13 agencies and interest groups during an 18-month 

process of deliberation, these principles are intended as a guiding vision behind the planning and 

implementation of specific restoration projects. Each point is fleshed out in the final principles 

document, available online at http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/spf/nm-restor-principles-122006.pdf.

1. Collaborate

2. Reduce the threat of unnatural crown fire

3. Prioritize and strategically target treatment areas

4. Develop site-specific reference conditions

5. Use low-impact techniques

6. Utilize existing forest structure

7. Restore ecosystem composition

8. Protect and maintain watershed and soil integrity

9. Preserve old or large trees while maintaining structural diversity and resilience

10. Manage to restore historic tree species composition

11. Integrate process and structure

12. Control and avoid using exotic species

13. Foster regional heterogeneity

14. Protect sensitive communities

15. Plan for restoration using a landscape perspective that recognizes cumulative effects

16. Manage grazing

17. Establish monitoring and research programs and implement adaptive management

18. Exercise caution and use site-specific knowledge in restoring or managing piñon-juniper 

ecosystems and other woodlands and savannas
The Science of Restoration: Planning and Setting Goals

12 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

“The CFRP is a really good model for ways we might support collaborative 

efforts and help communities take charge of their environment and future. 

Restoration will work if it’s collaborative, which means we need to change the 

way we relate to one another.”

—Dr. Penny Morgan, former technical advisory panel member and 

Professor, Department of Forest Resources, University of Idaho 
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 13

A Tough—But Necessary—Thing to Work: 

Communities and Collaboration

Collaboration—to some ears, the word carries an unhealthy taint of giving up one’s ideals, of allying 

with an enemy. Yet the CFRP wouldn’t exist without it. The idea that decisions about land 

management should not be made solely by experts with little stake in a local community, or by local 

people with little connection to larger interest groups, is at once the program’s most time-consuming 

element and its most vital.

Under the CFRP, proposed projects are required to incorporate collaboration. Ideally, that doesn’t 

mean only that a small group of central planners find other agencies or groups to carry out specific 

tasks, such as logging, monitoring, collection of native seed, or business development. Rather, it 

means that decisions about all those project details, as well as about the larger project goals, are made 

collaboratively by a diverse and balanced group of stakeholders that have agreed to participate. Of 

course that’s tricky, but it is the program’s most notable legacy precisely because the groups involved 

in forest and land management issues in New Mexico in the 1990s were so fractious, so fragmented.

“Ten or 15 years ago,” says one CFRP participant, “we had folks that we wouldn’t talk to, but now 

they’re involved.”

How has that trust formed? The answer is twofold. First, it is an attribute of land management history 

unique to New Mexico that the scraps of a forest industry left to fight over in the late 1990s were very 

small—too slight, in other words, to interest large companies with significant political muscle. By the 

same token, grants made under CFRP have themselves been small—no larger than $360,000, spread 

over 4 years—and thus have mainly gone to companies, community groups, and agencies that are 

able to work at a small, local scale. Simply put, much of what happened in New Mexico during the 

early years of the CFRP took place under the radar of powerful interests, of whatever political stripe, 

that could otherwise have derailed the program’s atmosphere of working together.

Second, and more important, trust has 

formed between those with widely 

varied viewpoints simply by virtue of 

time spent together—a lot of time, that 

is. The Panel specifically looks for 

evidence that proposals have been 

written with collaborative 

decisionmaking in mind. Often, when 

proposals aren’t funded, it’s because 

those partnerships haven’t been worked 

out well enough.

“Collaboration is a tough thing to 

work,” says one grantee. “But often, 

when weaknesses are identified by the 

panel, they lead to good revisions for 

next year’s proposal—and often to 

good collaboration because it’s in areas 

where you might have a weakness, but 

others don’t.”

Figure 4. Ruidoso Municipal Schools partnered with 

local businesses, environmental groups and the Forest 

Service to create an outdoor classroom to teach 

students about forest restoration.
A Tough- But Necessary- Thing to Work: Communities and Collaboration

14 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

As a result, members of groups that once interacted primarily through protest, litigation, and 

oppositional letters to the editor have found themselves sitting in the same rooms, slowly coming to 

appreciate one another’s point of view. Loggers began to learn about ecological monitoring from 

academics or representatives of environmental groups; environmentalists came to appreciate that the 

sustainability of small, local businesses really did seem to have a connection to ecological 

sustainability; a tribal government and the Forest Service found themselves sharing monitoring data 

after years of a relationship that was more often adversarial. One participant who sat in on many 

lengthy meetings about a particular project says that he knew progress was being made when an 

advocate of one perspective left the room for a while—and his ideological opponent proceeded to 

summarize what the man would have said had he been present.

“Now people know the person, not just the name and signature,” said one Forest Service official of a 

representative of an environmental group once viewed with disdain by those involved in the logging 

industry.

Still, challenges remain. There is a natural limit to the capacity of the community and environmental 

groups that are willing and able to participate in the program, especially in a state as large and 

sparsely populated as New Mexico. Though the circle of people and groups choosing to participate in 

CFRP has broadened over the years—coming to incorporate, as one observer says, “people who stood 

out there with their arms folded”—it has not come to include everyone. Some advocacy groups have 

litigated some CFRP projects and refuse to participate in the collaborative process. In other cases the 

number of CFRP grant applicants requesting participation from conservation and environmental 

organizations exceeds the capacity of those organizations, even if they support the project idea. 

Some agency representatives, too, have been reluctant to take part; proponents of a number of CFRP 

projects have been frustrated by the challenge of working with Forest Service officials who are 

uneasy at best about participating. In part that’s because of personnel turnover: new staff members 

arriving in a district may view the program as unfamiliar and threatening, or as an additional 

workload, rather than as an opportunity to get work done in a non-traditional way. In part it’s also 

because the CFRP does not always align easily with other agency timelines, or with other policies or 

mandates, such as the need to get a certain number of acres treated with fuels reduction treatments on 

a particular district. A widespread embrace of the collaborative process within the Forest Service, or 

any other public resource management agency, is unlikely to occur without institutional changes that 

reward, rather than hinder, active participation in collaborative initiatives like the CFRP. There is, 

however, a perspective within the region that things are much better than they were in 2000, and that 

they are getting better each year. The program is being accepted and integrated more at the field level.

For all these reasons, broad-based education about collaboration is critical to the program’s continued 

success. It needs to take place within projects themselves; in particular, several project leaders have 

pointed to the need to create a broad-based core of managers for each project so that one leader does 

not get overwhelmed by the work that needs to be done. It needs to extend to agency officials who 

may find the collaborative process unfamiliar. It’s needed as a critical element of outreach to other 

members of a community, whether a geographically localized one or one of affinity or economics, 

such as an industry or environmental group. That might be done, for example, through expanded 

youth programs or through public outreach such as brochures and other educational efforts aimed at 

neighboring landowners.

The process of collaboration is an ongoing one, never perfected. But it is arguably the most enduring 

legacy, so far, of the CFRP—albeit the one hardest to quantify. As onetime opponents have learned to 

work with one another on particular projects, they develop trust that bears fruit far outside the bounds 
A Tough- But Necessary- Thing to Work: Communities and Collaboration

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 15

of a small-scale forest or woodland restoration project. Whatever community—or communities, 

really—they’re part of, they’re learning to work together across old boundaries that, once you reach 

across them, no longer seem so important.

Lessons Learned

When planning a collaborative project, be clear about what terms mean and how the process 

will work. Many people aren’t familiar with the process of collaboration and consensus. Use 

professional facilitation at the outset to define such concepts and model appropriate behavior.

Use an open, transparent process to recommend projects for funding. The review of project 

proposals should be open to the public. Recruit panel members from diverse and balanced interest 

groups. Seek out and appoint panel members who have standing within their interest group so they 

can effectively advocate for the panel recommendations when they return home. Assure that panel 

members are willing and able to listen, learn, and negotiate successfully in a consensus-based process. 

Reward collaboration. Create a system within the public land management agencies that rewards 

employees for collaborating with stakeholders and partners to accomplish land management 

objectives.

Identify agency personnel who are trained in collaboration and task them with representing the 

agency in collaborative processes.

Train for facilitation and collaboration. Project managers and other interested participants may 

benefit from training, early on, in the basics of how to work collaboratively with groups.

Clarify the roles particular groups or individuals will play. In the proposal phase, as well as 

during a project’s implementation, things run more smoothly if all participants share an understanding 

of what their responsibilities are or will be. Letters of endorsement should precisely spell out what a 

participating group will do. Establishing a steering committee can also help to provide support and 

avoid burnout. Detailed planning helps both in achieving consensus and in crafting a wise work plan 

that minimizes the chance of unwelcomed surprises. 

Create working groups that foster effective collaboration. Think broadly about potential partners. 

For example, county associations can be a force for lobbying or collaboration. When working with 

tribes, it is important to also include the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Listen. A genuine understanding of where a community, agency office, or organization is coming 

from is essential to the collaborative process. Those who have succeeded at this process suggest that 

good listening, and humility, are vital skills. Don’t come into a community from the outside and tell 

its members how to act; do focus on building personal contacts and staying in touch.

Work with agencies to look for intersecting interests. When working with the Forest Service,

potential grantees should determine if and how their proposed project dovetails with agency priorities. 

This could be done by attending Forest Service planning meetings or, at the minimum, by working 

with the CFRP coordinator on their local national forest as the first step in developing their idea.

Involve a wide range of agency personnel in collaborative decisionmaking. Too often, only Forest 

Service staff who are specifically tasked with working on CFRP projects attend the panel meetings or 
A Tough- But Necessary- Thing to Work: Communities and Collaboration

16 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

the annual CFRP workshop. Broader representation by a wider range of agency personnel, such as 

district rangers and their staff, would help disseminate collaborative ideals more broadly.

In His Own Words: Rene Romero

I worked with the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps before I came to work for the pueblo. As a nonprofit 

we were always hungry, always looking for ways to find funding and projects. This looked like an 

innovative way to get out in the woods and do some good. So I’ve been involved with two CFRP 

projects now.

Here at the pueblo, we had a large fire called the Encebado Fire in 2003. Some of us had thought we 

were immune to fire—this was a big wakeup call. Our project focused on the aftermath of a fire by 

relying on a lot of cooperation across jurisdictional boundaries. We re-established access to some 

traditional usage areas, and did thinning in priority areas down low, where a fire could get started. 

And the biggest impact is assessing how much good we can do with the wood. That’s the big question 

in all these forest thinning projects. Here, it’s a valuable product, where many people still use wood as a 

primary source of heat, so we’ve had to make sure we’re distributing it fairly.

The two watersheds we have are priceless, not just in the quantity of water they provide, but in the 

quality. The watershed restoration project has brought much more awareness to the everyday 

person—we’ve learned that we have to be proactive, because once a fire’s on the way there’s not 

much you can do. And we’ve been able to look across boundary lines with the Forest Service and the 

BLM. We can look at the whole watershed and at the cultural significance of certain areas. We’ve 

been able to create some pretty interesting maps that go across boundaries; that’s a huge thing 

because we can define project-scale work that way. It’s definitely going to carry over into other 

encounters.

The CFRP gave us a couple of steps to maneuver up the ladder and promote what we’re doing. The 

dream—the big dream—looks forward a thousand years, and focuses on bringing the balance back 

and bringing fire back into the system. We’re looking at how we can continue to get some funding to 

work toward that. The amount of money that’s already been put into the system by the CFRP, the 

amount of work that’s gone into protecting resource values—it’s amazing what it’s done. But I think 

the application process is becoming a bit too unwieldy. For a project to get the OK anymore you 

almost need a professional grant writer because you need to cross all the Ts and dot all the Is. I’ve 

seen a lot of good projects get kicked out by the panel just because they don’t meet one criterion in 

the RFP. I don’t know—maybe that makes everyone stronger in the end. Or maybe what’s needed is 

more of a merit-based system.

Rene Romero is the fire program manager for Taos Pueblo.

“Consensus isn’t about sitting around and singing Kumbaya—it’s about, can we 

all live with this?”

—Walter Dunn, CFRP Program Coordinator
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 17

Learning for Today and Tomorrow: 

Training Workers and the Public

The CFRP is a pioneering program, and arguably everyone involved in it has had to spend a good 

deal of time venturing into uncharted territory—whether that entails negotiating with a land 

management agency, striving toward consensus with new partners, operating equipment in the 

woods, or gathering monitoring data that helps participants understand the effects of their work. 

Training for these new skills is vital if a project is to succeed, but it has proven a challenge to 

some program participants who have discovered that a greater degree of education should 

explicitly be built into each project from the beginning.

The need for learning is perhaps most selfevident when it comes to the practical skills required to 

implement a project on the ground. Workers thinning a dense patch of forest need to know how to 

safely sharpen and operate chain saws, fell and buck trees, and provide some first aid. Some of 

this training is mandated by state regulations. It’s important not only in its own right, but because 

adequate training can help lower the cost of providing workers’ compensation, which has been a 

considerable burden to some of the entrepreneurs conducting CFRP work. But some project 

participants feel that the training offered is either not hands-on enough or, in some cases, 

duplicative. Training can also prove expensive for community groups or small businesses 

carrying out restoration work. Such problems could perhaps be rectified by working with industry 

groups; in New Mexico, for example, the New Mexico Forest Industry Association now oversees 

the implementation of the forest worker safety training. Participating in that standardized training 

has allowed some businesses to reduce premiums for workers’ compensation, which means that 

more dollars are available for restoration work on the ground.

Nowhere is the need for practical training more critical than when previously inexperienced youth 

workers are involved. Over the course of the CFRP’s existence, the percentage of projects 

involving local youth in restoration and/or monitoring work has steadily increased. After a fire 

burned over part of Ojo Peak outside Mountainair in central New Mexico, for example, local 

youth from middle and high schools helped with a CFRP project whose primary goals were the 

reduction of fire-caused erosion and the replanting of native plant species. They collected and 

planted seeds of native plants, built erosion control structures from burned logs, and monitored 

the results. Some visited New Mexico Highlands University to learn how university training can 

form a base for a natural resource career. Not all will choose such careers, of course, but the 

coordinator of a project involving youth participation has pointed out that such exposure can 

provide big benefits down the road regardless of what career path the students choose.

“They could see the enthusiasm for what we do,” he said, “and that’s a benefit that might result in 

them going to college, or even choosing another field.”

The larger benefits of youth involvement in their local landscape are even more intangible, but no 

less real. One of the Ojo Peak project participants described how he came to see the exceedingly 

familiar landscape outside his home village with new eyes: “I have a new appreciation for the 

mountain now,” he said. A number of public schools in New Mexico have developed natural 

resource management courses that include gathering data for CFRP project monitoring. A core 

assumption of the CFRP is that greater understanding of forest restoration issues among young 

people will lead to a more informed public debate over public land management issues in the 

future.
Learning for Today and Tomorrow: Training Workers and the Public

18 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

Many new jobs have been created 

through CFRP projects; however, not 

all are sustainable. Sometimes no work 

is left when a grant runs out; sometimes 

trained workers leave for more 

education or better paying jobs 

elsewhere. That’s not always a 

drawback, as some of those involved 

with youth programs point out. A 

number of CFRP projects have 

involved Youth Conservation Corps 

programs, which are explicitly 

designed to train youth in work skills 

so that they can move on to more 

lasting jobs or further their education. 

Some of those youth have embraced 

natural resource jobs—tin fact, some 

have gone to work for the Forest 

Service—but more have not. Still, one 

youth program coordinator notes, 

“thinning the field is part of the 

education”—discovering that operating a chain saw isn’t for them can help motivate young 

people to continue their education so that they can work in some other field. Some project 

coordinators do, though, view a lack of retention as a problem and perceive it as a hurdle to the 

sustainability, and even to the long-term survival, of restoration-based businesses. 

Education about the goals of CFRP projects needs to go well beyond the immediate circle of 

those working on a particular project. Participants have found that Forest Service officials who 

are often more accustomed to working solely within a Federal bureaucracy need to learn how to 

work at a community level; members of community groups need to learn why a time-consuming 

involvement in a CFRP project might be worth their while; neighboring landowners need to learn 

about forest restoration so that they can understand why a tract of woods is being thinned, and 

think about doing the same on their land. In that regard, a physical example is probably always 

best.

“When I got here, you needed a permit to cut a tree about 5 inches in circumference,” says one 

project coordinator with extensive experience working in the wildland-urban interface. “The 

CFRP projects provide an example—we would bring people through the treated areas. It really 

provided the education and public awareness.”

Lessons Learned

Work with and build on local or national youth programs. Youth Conservation Corps 

programs involve about 25,000 young people nationwide at any given time and can provide 

powerful opportunities for education and for getting work done. But it is critical to involve youth 

participants in the details of project planning, not just to rely on them as a labor force or as a 

means of swelling the ranks of groups participating in a project.

Figure 5. Rocky Mountain Youth Corps won the 

2009 National Youth Corps Award for the Largo 

Canyon Sustainable Forestry Project. Photo 

courtesy of the Forest Guild.
Learning for Today and Tomorrow: Training Workers and the Public

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 19

Put adequate resources into training and mentoring good crew leaders—they are essential to 

success. Their training needs to include not just education in equipment and restoration 

techniques and goals, but also in personnel management.

Develop monitoring and education through schools and colleges to improve capacity, 

especially in rural areas. In particular, it’s helpful to identify and build capacity for spinoff 

careers, such as monitoring.

Good pretreatment data is essential for estimating costs and planning workloads. A small 

investment of time before a project gets underway can save a lot of time later.

Consider a wide range of education and outreach tools. Printed materials, Web sites, and audio 

and video materials may all be appropriate. But often field tours to restoration sites provide the 

most lasting educational value.

In Her Own Words: Suellen Strale

I opened this program with the youth in the community, or they opened the program for me, and 

now they’ve grown up. They keep graduating on, which is wonderful. My younger kids are corps 

members. Normally they start at 14. Eighteen and up, they join the crew. The focus is, I really 

want you to go to college; I really want you to be educated. You get college credit, and then the 

idea is that the professional forestry crew upon getting their degree will get positions with the 

Forest Service or BLM, rather than those agencies having to import people from out of state. 

That’s why we’ve just changed the name from a youth corps to a conservation corps. We’ve built 

a really lovely long-term program. It’s a family.

The work with CFRP came through a long-term partnership with Forest Guild and a newer one 

with Earth Works Institute. They wanted us to help with a CFRP project as the youth component. 

Part of the impetus was to have a strong training program, and to take these young burgeoning 

foresters out there and teach them: how do you really control erosion after a fire and keep runoff 

from ripping through the boy scout camp? How do you maintain your chain saw? So Forest Guild 

and Earthworks started training our crews. Some youth members weren’t ready for the transition 

to the professional crew, but some were. They’re the cream of the crop.

Everyone on my crew (who is over 18 years old) has their own chain saw. We own it, but we sign 

it out. So sawyer number 9 is in charge of chain saw number 9. You maintain it as if it’s yours. 

They have time in the field dedicated to maintenance. And they’re awesome. They all go out, do 

their own thing, and then the crew chief comes back to do the quality control. The crew has 

gotten their act in gear. They have to; we’ve got about 300 acres to do this summer, so you can’t 

just poke along. They’re the perfect role models for their younger brothers, sisters, cousins. 

There’s no nonsense in the field. They don’t mess around. Messing around would drag down the 

professionalism of the forestry crews (and compromise safety).

That’s the philosophy—there’s a very strong work ethic. And CFRP has given us the opportunity 

to graduate from a youth corps to a full-blown conservation corps. Now we have a triad with 

Forest Guild and Earthworks and we’re working on all sorts of grant proposals together. It’s a 

perfect match. We’re getting other contracts now, and we need them to stay alive. Some of them 

are forestry projects, some are river restoration. These young people don’t necessarily want to go 

into just one thing. The more contracts I can bring in, the better off we’re going to be. And CFRP 
Learning for Today and Tomorrow: Training Workers and the Public

20 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

helped that; it has helped us get a number of other contracts by networking with other forestry 

projects. CFRP has really given us a leg up.

Suellen Strale directs the Chimayo Conservation Corps in Rio Arriba County.

“I was surprised to learn that people get paid to do something I consider fun”

—Gabriel Ramirez, youth participant, CFRP project
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 21

Making It Last: 

Fostering Business Sustainability

Promoting and supporting small businesses that can carry out restoration work at a local level has 

been an important part of the CFRP since its inception. But it has been and remains one of the 

program’s greatest challenges. The sustainability of small businesses is connected to so many 

factors outside the program’s purview—such as consumer demand, the price of fuel, or changes 

in the market value of wood products—that planning for sustainability is a challenging task 

indeed.

One of the main problems faced by CFRP-related businesses has been the unanticipated costs 

associated with the implementation of particular projects. Expenses in workers’ compensation, 

taxes, overhead costs, equipment purchases, and treatment costs per acre have often proven 

higher than anticipated, resulting in losses of profit or in a reduction in the acres treated. Such 

costs as monitoring have often not been sufficiently factored into project budgets.

“In our area there are a lot of people who have worked on contracts, and they know how things 

worked in the old days,” says one Forest Service official. “They’re surprised by how much 

peripheral work is involved in making one of these projects work.”

The peripheral work doesn’t just result in higher costs; it often results in less desirable jobs. For 

example, the direct travel costs for workers traveling to and from work sites on a single CFRP 

project in 2007 and 2008 totaled more than $15,000 when calculated using the standard Federal 

mileage reimbursement rate. Depending on how a project is budgeted, such expenses represent a 

significant cost either to the project or to workers (if they have to pay their own commuting 

costs). In the latter case, they ultimately serve to make restoration jobs at distant sites less 

competitive than other jobs. In addition, delays in reimbursement have sometimes caused delays 

in processing paychecks. These factors, coupled with the seasonal nature of forest restoration 

work and a lack of benefits, often mean that jobs implementing these projects are relatively 

undesirable, even in rural settings where other jobs are scarce. As a result, business owners often 

have to spend time and money training new workers each season.

The creation of an industry group, the New Mexico Forest Industry Association, has greatly 

helped business owners with such problems. Founded in 2007, the association was awarded a 

CFRP grant in the following year enabling it to offer technical assistance in such areas as grant 

writing, financial management, public outreach and education. It also administers the state’s 

Forest Worker Safety Certification program, which can reduce business overhead by cutting the 

costs of workers’ compensation coverage by as much as 30 percent.

The best way to deal with these costs during program implementation is to have anticipated 

them—and budgeted for them—as thoroughly as possible in project proposals. The trick is to 

incorporate as much planning as possible into project proposals and work plans—while still 

retaining some flexibility for the changes that will inevitably come as a result of weather, changes 

in market conditions, and numerous other variables.

A potentially larger problem lies in the structure of the grant program itself. A grant of up to 

$360,000, spread over 4 years, can jump-start a business, but it can’t by itself sustain it. Agency 

officials and business owners alike have often not fully grasped how much additional work is 

needed.
Making it Last: Fostering Business Sustainability

22 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

“Agency personnel have misunderstood the goals of CFRP by thinking that applicants may only 

require one or two grants to become successful in business,” says one Forest Service official. 

“Some business owners feel the agency should be subsidizing forest restoration work, and don’t 

work on ways to increase efficiency or increase or expand markets.”

The successful business owners, of course, are those who realize they need to expand markets. 

Though some have successfully sold timber, especially value-added, regionally desirable products 

such as the viga and latilla beams popular in Santa Fe style architecture, it is often difficult to 

compete with cheap imports from other regions or nations. Many of the most successful CFRP 

grantees are those who have created innovative new products that avoid some of the problems of 

the southwestern timber market. Businesses have developed a number of products that can be 

made from low value, small diameter trees, including animal bedding, erosion control blankets, a 

composite plastic-wood chip material used for signs, and replacement pieces for old wood floors. 

Making a product that succeeds in the marketplace goes a long way toward making businesses 

sustainable, and removes some of the unpredictability of relying on grant funding.

“We eventually want to use every 

bit of the wood we remove,” says 

one project coordinator. “This 

project cannot be done on Federal 

funds alone. There are too many 

acres, too many trees, too much fire 

risk. We need to add a market pull 

rather than just a Federal push.”

The market pull is complicated, 

though, by uncertainties in supply. 

It has proven largely impossible for 

the managers of public lands to 

guarantee a certain long-term 

supply of wood to potential users. 

As a result, business owners often 

have to work to cobble together 

sufficient materials from a 

patchwork of public and private 

lands. But that works better in some 

regions than others; businesses in 

areas dominated by national forests often have real difficulty in assuring enough supply.

In recent years considerable effort has gone into strategic planning for forest restoration in the 

Southwest, through such initiatives as the National Fire Plan or Northern Arizona University’s 

ForestERA project, which has conducted an assessment of fire risk and restoration opportunities 

across 6 million acres of north-central New Mexico. But similar effort has not gone into assessing 

prospects for the sustainability of small forest-based businesses. Perhaps strategic planning 

involving multiple communities, businesses, and public lands jurisdictions could help to put the 

survival of forest-related businesses on as solid a footing as the science of restoration itself.

Figure 6. Silver Dollar Racing and Shavings 

manufactures wood shavings from the byproducts of 

restoration projects.
Making it Last: Fostering Business Sustainability

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 23

Lessons Learned

Think about restoration projects as investments, rather than narrowly defined businesses.

Forest restoration work has short-term benefits that may not equal the costs of planning and 

implementation, but it also carries long-term benefits in both ecosystem and community health. 

That has implications for how society, and Federal agencies, should fund restoration projects.

Ensure that program planners and panel members understand the business aspects of 

restoration-based work. It’s easy to focus a great deal of attention on the scientific and 

ecological aspects of restoration. They’re important, but a good understanding of business 

capabilities and needs is essential if projects are to be properly planned and funded.

Build coalitions around restoration-related business. Working groups can collaborate to 

address funding and strategic planning needs. From the perspective of land management agencies, 

it can be very useful to inventory companies certified to do the work, and have agencies 

communicate needs to them. This sort of advance planning can help sustain more lasting, yearround jobs.

Have a good understanding of tax and insurance requirements, especially workmen’s 

compensation. Unexpectedly high costs have contributed to less work getting done on a number 

of CFRP projects.

Develop real cost and appraisal systems. Too often, Forest Service appraisals of small diameter 

material have been based on out-of-date timber models or indicators that do not reflect local 

conditions. A realistic business plan should be based on actual local market values and conditions.

Assess the material available. Projects utilizing small wood should assess the future availability 

of material beyond the horizon of the grant funded project. Collaboration with local agency units 

could help the Forest Service plan their future program of work and provide a consistent supply 

of acres for treatment and material. 

Build flexibility into project tactics and budgets. Though proposals need to incorporate solid 

goals and parameters, things do change once work in the field is taking place.

In Her Own Words: Sherry Barrow

In 2000 we had a horrible fire season. Glen and I had been doing research to try to figure out 

what could be done. SBS Wood Shavings started in 2001. We applied for our first CFRP grant 

that year, a small request for the drying system that we have for producing shavings. We 

leveraged that CFRP grant in several different ways—it was a valuable and essential component 

for us. By 2002, we were in full-on production.

We didn’t do any more CFRP grants until 2005, when we started the Cedar Creek project. This 

was a whole-cloth project where we brought in a whole lot of different stakeholders. We brought 

in some environmentalist stakeholders. We used a swing harvester system that was the only one 

in the West at the time. We did quite a bit of monitoring there. We’ve also participated 

collaboratively by doing mechanical thinning on several different CFRP projects. The 

improvement of ecosystem function—that’s really our niche. A lot of people look at it with fire 
Making it Last: Fostering Business Sustainability

24 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

eyes. We really try to look at the whole forest. We stand on a ridgetop, and we don’t see board 

feet—we see trees.

The value of CFRP, more than any particular project, is the structure it provides for a way of 

identifying the common ground. Speaking from the perspective of a small business person who 

wants to do good in the world, the structure of having a collaborative process where one seeks to 

identify the perspective of the others out there is critical. When I go to the technical advisory 

panel meeting and they approve my grant proposal, I believe they’ve trusted me. That’s a real 

commitment to me, my stakeholders, and my community. I wish people working in world politics 

did this.

What would I tell other business owners? Don’t do anything until you visit your district ranger 

and find out if what you want to do fits into their plan. It’s really hard work, and the margins 

aren’t good. Do you want to do this to earn a lot of money to retire on, or to be a forest 

missionary? You’re probably not going to make a lot of money. You’ve really got to want to do 

this.

If we are going to have sustainable forest-based businesses that can thrive after the CFRP grant is 

completed, there must be a commitment by Forest Service contracting to offer work with values 

that reflect the values of the CFRP. My greatest concern is that there is not a commitment to 

restoration type prescriptions applied as local contracts within the regular Forest Service budget. 

The “high volume of acres—low treatment cost” target mentality is the single most damaging 

directive of the National Forest System. Decisions for the most acres treated for the least amount 

of money are short sighted and don’t address the relationship between ecology and the local 

economy.

Sherry Barrow is co-owner of SBS Wood Shavings in Ruidoso.

“Behind every restored forest is a restored forest industry”

—Naomi Engelman, former director,

New Mexico Forest Industry Association
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 25

Measuring Outcomes: 

Monitoring and Evaluation

CFRP projects are required to incorporate multiparty monitoring that assesses how effectively the 

project’s stated goals are being met. It is the element of these projects that has perhaps evolved 

the most in the program’s almost 10-year history. That’s a continuing challenge for every single 

funded project, but it’s a sign of vigor, too.

“The ability to morph and change is a success,” says one program participant. “Monitoring is 

difficult. The fact that we’re wrestling with it is a good sign about the maturity of the program.”

Early on, grantees didn’t know much about monitoring—except that it was a requirement. 

Contractors and community groups involved in projects were unaccustomed to measuring the 

results of restoration

treatments. They were 

unsure why the monitoring 

had to happen, and uncertain 

about what to do with 

whatever information they 

did collect. It seemed, as 

more than one grantee has 

summarized it, that they 

were being asked to do 

“monitoring for the sake of 

monitoring.”

“Monitoring was a big 

hangup for some of our firsttime CFRP proponents,” says 

one Forest Service official. 

“They just couldn’t get their 

arms around what it means 

to have a well rounded and 

diverse multiparty 

monitoring group.”

The hurdles were both practical and theoretical. In 2002 a working group was convened to build 

agreement on what multiparty monitoring was and how it could be accomplished. They produced 

a set of monitoring guidelines that were published by the Forest Service in 2003. A CFRP grant 

was then awarded to Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute to work with 

other organizations to produce a series of six monitoring handbooks which are now available both 

in print form and online. The manuals go into great detail—so much detail that some project 

coordinators were overwhelmed. As a result, those handbooks were later condensed into a single 

“Short Guide” that provides an overview of how to craft a monitoring plan and measure 12 key 

variables (see sidebar). Beginning in 2009, CFRP grant applicants were required to include a 

minimum set of core ecological indicators. CFRP grantees and applicants can receive technical 

assistance on the design and implementation of multiparty monitoring plans through a Forest 

Service agreement with the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at New 

Mexico Highlands University.

Figure 7. Students like these 7th graders at Santo Domingo 

often participate in monitoring CFRP projects. Of 14 projects 

funded in 2008, 8 involve students in monitoring project sites.
Measuring Outcomes: Monitoring and Evaluation

26 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

Even with these excellent tools, some monitoring continues to be difficult. Ecological variables, 

such as tree density and the height of tree crowns, are relatively easy to measure. The core 

indicators are not necessarily the best indicators for each project, though, as they were chosen in 

large part because of the ease of data collection and the opportunity they provide to compare 

results across projects and jurisdictions. Further, it is difficult to assess socioeconomic variables 

such as jobs created because much of the work on CFRP projects is seasonal. It is also difficult to 

assess project results that are important but largely qualitative, or at least challenging to measure, 

such as cultural values or ecosystem services. For example, a restored watershed might provide 

more or better quality water to a community below, but it’s difficult to prove that thinning trees 

led to improved water supplies without detailed experimental manipulation that goes well beyond 

what most CFRP projects are designed to do. 

The theoretical hurdle—why do we need to do this?—was a larger one. Ideally, monitoring data 

garnered from restoration treatments should be used for two purposes: (1) to alter a project’s 

prescriptions and methods if the information shows they’re not as effective as they could be; and 

(2) to assess the program’s large-scale effects. The former has been done only sparingly, and 

generally only when monitoring has been done by outside professionals who can quickly assess 

the data collected and use it to make changes. That happened, for example, in a project on the 

Carson National Forest in which the contractor and the Forest Service disagreed about how much 

fuel could be left on the ground prior to a prescribed burn. After some negotiation, the contractor 

agreed to remove more downed wood. Re-measurement of the amount of fuel was then used to 

show that conditions had been made appropriate for the needed burn. For most projects, though, 

there really has been no effective feedback loop that allows the results of one summer’s work to 

be used in altering the next season’s work.

How useful has the overall monitoring of CFRP projects been? A subcommittee of the CFRP 

panel meets semiannually to review the multiparty assessments of completed projects. In 2008 

they concluded that the results have been mixed. Despite the existence of the instructional 

handbooks, project teams have used a wide range of monitoring protocols, making it difficult to 

compare results across projects. About a quarter of projects, the report concluded, did not use 

reliable monitoring methods at all. But the report also pointed out that some projects did an 

excellent job at monitoring, and singled out 20 of them that feature particularly high standards of 

measurement and reporting. The act requires the Forest Service to monitor the ecological effects 

of the CFRP restoration treatments for 15 years, so the CFRP subcommittee proposed that those 

projects be monitored at intervals of 5, 10, and 15 years after treatment in order to gain a 

perspective on the long-term ecological effects of restoration treatments.

It’s testimony to the high standards of the program that this long-term analysis can be done at this 

point. As more projects adopt standardized monitoring protocols, more such analysis will be 

possible in the future. One important step in that direction is the establishment of a centralized 

data repository and a focus on making monitoring data from all projects readily accessible to the 

public. The New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute is currently charged with 

long-term monitoring of the 20 sites identified by the CFRP subcommittee, and may be 

positioned to establish a data repository of this kind in the future. 

One of the tradeoffs that has surfaced as monitoring projects have been planned and implemented 

is between education and professionalism. Many projects have integrated monitoring and 

education by instituting a process through which youth participants collect post-treatment data. 

The educational value of such a process is genuine, but some observers have pointed out that this 
Measuring Outcomes: Monitoring and Evaluation

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 27

is not the most efficient way to collect data, nor perhaps the most uniform. In response, some 

projects have in recent years focused on monitoring by professionals. That helps to standardize 

methods and reduce the need for training. But that may cut out an important component of 

community-level training, especially of young people who can benefit greatly from participating 

in project monitoring.

“There will always be incompatibility between community-based monitoring and landscape-level 

or regional usefulness,” says one project coordinator.

There will always be incompatibility, too, between monitoring standards that are appropriate 

program-wide and those that are exactly right for a particular project. Where possible, it is of 

course ideal to focus energy and resources on both. But in reality designing a monitoring program 

often involves tough choices that focus more on needs than on desires, and that ultimately comes 

down to decisions about budget realities. 

Lessons Learned

Develop a standardized monitoring framework upon which those carrying out projects can 

build their own monitoring protocols. CFRP projects must use six key ecological indicators that 

are included in the eligibility requirements in the CFRP Request for Proposals. A set of 

socioeconomic indicators are also recommended in the “Short Guide.” Standardization has 

benefits, such as ready comparison across jurisdictional boundaries—but it has drawbacks, for too 

much standardization can result in a monitoring program not appropriate to a certain area or 

project.

Decide early on what the monitoring goals are. If the goal of the project is to educate or engage 

community members, then community-based or youth group monitoring should be the focus. If 

the goal is on-the-ground forest restoration, then the core ecological indicators apply. A project 

with a more specific ecological restoration objective may require more detailed scientific data 

that relies on professionals or academic data collection. 

Collect sufficient pretreatment data. The post-treatment data lack context if they can’t be 

compared to descriptions of earlier conditions.

Make room for qualitative descriptions of what the work has accomplished, not just 

quantitative. Aesthetics, for example, can be an important element of restoration work, but one 

not easily captured by such metrics as basal area or trees per acre. So can ecosystem services such 

as susceptibility to erosion or severe wildfire. The same is true of socioeconomic variables such 

as the sustainability of local businesses.

Designate a monitoring coordinator and a multiparty team to support that person for each 

project. The CFRP provides on-the-ground technical assistance to CFRP grantees and grant 

applicants in the design and implementation of their multiparty monitoring plans.

Develop a centralized home for monitoring data that will allow the information to be made 

available both quickly and in the long term. The Forest and Watershed Research Institute at New 

Mexico Highlands University is fulfilling this function for the CFRP. Making monitoring data 

available online is critical in making it accessible.
Measuring Outcomes: Monitoring and Evaluation

28 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

Develop feedback loops that allow data collected to quickly be fed back into the planning of 

future work on a project, or into planning for other projects. Work with local agency personnel to 

build flexibility and adaptability into NEPA decisions to allow the feedback to be incorporated 

into the project in a timely manner.

Don’t neglect to budget time and/or money for monitoring, data entry, and related tasks into 

project proposals. Use shortcuts where possible—for example, by buying and using PDAs for 

data collection.

Train for monitoring through publications, workshops, and other outreach tools.

In Her Own Words: Melissa Savage

I was on the first panel, and served for 3 years. Over that time I realized that although there’s 

some language in the act that mandates assessment, most people didn’t have access to the kind of 

information, either ecological or socioeconomic, that would help them assess the outcomes of 

their project. So we decided to help get that information to them by putting together some 

guidelines for monitoring. Early on something appeared that we hadn’t expected. There were 

people at our first large meeting who wanted to track the outcome of restoration treatments on the 

ground. There were also people interested in community empowerment. They wanted 

communities to determine what should be monitored. The tension from that helped shape the 

monitoring protocols. Now the panel won’t recommend funding unless you have a good 

monitoring plan in the proposal.

Following on that, a group of partners put in for a CFRP grant to help offer grantees monitoring 

assistance, and as part of that we developed the monitoring handbooks. We were trying to 

compromise between tracking changes in the forests and in communities as a result of restoration 

grants, and giving communities the capacity to do this. We chose the parameters so communities 

or anyone could do them, not because they were necessarily the perfect parameters.

Many communities are not interested in developing the capacity for monitoring, either ecological 

or socioeconomic. I struggled with that for a while before realizing that it wasn’t necessary. 

There’s plenty of money in these grants to pay outside professionals to do that. But the 

collaborators should be able to sit down at a table together with the professional and decide what 

monitoring choices are meaningful to them. Monitoring protocols can be carried out very well by 

people in the community, especially by youth groups. They’re really good at it. But the design of 

a monitoring program should be developed by professionals in collaboration with the partners. 

The main purpose of the monitoring is for collaborators to understand what the results of their 

restoration work are. Part of the goal of the program was to develop capacity in smaller 

communities. That hasn’t happened as we would have liked it to—a 3-year grant is too short a 

timeframe. For lower capacity communities, developing and managing monitoring can be 

overwhelming. 

Data management has also proven difficult—keeping track of data, not losing it, and getting it to 

someone who can analyze it. That’s another way monitoring benefits from higher capacity help. 

And then it’s very important to think about what we do with the end result. Typically the final 

report gets sent in and shelved and not read. The partners should be encouraged to look at the 

final results and gain some insight into what restoration might mean for their communities and 

forests. So far it hasn’t usually happened that way.
Measuring Outcomes: Monitoring and Evaluation

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 29

Melissa Savage is a geographer who directs the Four Corners Institute in Santa Fe.

“Early on, monitoring seemed to be for the sake of monitoring. Now there 

seems to be increased focus on the ‘what for?’ ”

—Gordon West, CFRP grantee

Core Monitoring Indicators

The “Short Guide” published by the Ecological Restoration Institute and New Mexico 

Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute lists the following 12 key indicators that can 

be used to help monitor any restoration project. It describes why and how to measure 

them, includes sample forms that can be copied, and outlines how to budget for and 

plan a monitoring program.

Socioeconomic Indicators

Number and kind of jobs created *

Skills gained *

Value of wood products

Education and outreach

Distance to work

Community perceptions

Ecological Indicators

Live and dead tree density *

Live and dead tree size *

Crown base height *

Overstory canopy cover *

Understory cover *

Surface fuels *

Variables marked with * are required to be monitored under current CFRP guidelines. 

For more information, view the guide at 

http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/spf/cfrp/monitoring/index.shtml.
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 31

The Big Picture: 

Program Infrastructure and Administration

The CFRP is administered by staff within the Forest Service. The team includes three employees 

within the Forest Service’s regional office who are responsible for centralized program 

administration, and five coordinators who work for each of New Mexico’s five national forests, as 

well as ancillary employees who provide such essential services as the administration of grant 

payments. The forest coordinators act as advocates, administrators, technical trainers, and liaisons 

for proposed and granted projects within their parts of the state—not just on national forest land. 

They help proponents develop project ideas, teach grant writing skills, process payments, and act 

as a connection to other Forest Service staff, such as district rangers, silviculturists, or other 

specialists.

The efforts of these Forest Service staff members are critical to the success of the program, but 

the annual spring panel meetings are arguably the heart of the program. The panel was authorized 

by Congress and is chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FACA, by the 

Secretary of Agriculture to make recommendations to the Forest Service. Virtually all of the 

panel’s recommendations have been approved and implemented by the Regional Forester. Panel 

members have pointed to that history of success as vital to their dedication and willingness to 

serve.

“Maybe I could influence a problem and help people work through it—that creates a willingness 

to commit to it,” says one panel member. “It’s well run and it has a philosophy, and if it didn’t I 

don’t think I’d commit the time to it.”

The panel is made up of 12 to 15 members who represent a range of interests, including Federal 

and state land management agencies, tribes, industry, environmental groups, independent 

scientists, and communities. Members serve 2-year terms, and can reapply to serve for up to 6

years. Their work is no small commitment. Members need to assess detailed project proposals by 

all applicants; during the 2009 session, there were 39 proposals, with an average length of 65 

pages each. The deliberations take a full week of workdays that often last 10 hours. Each project 

has a designated presenter on the panel—a member who has studied it carefully and can present it 

in detail to the group.

“We need to give due diligence to every project,” says one former panel member. “Somebody 

worked hard on it. That takes time.”

The panel meeting is open to the public. Project proponents are not allowed to make 

presentations, but they can provide clarifications if asked by panel members, or address the panel

during scheduled public comment periods. Project proponents listen as their proposals are 

meticulously dissected. It’s a process that proposal writers have called “brutal” and “grueling,” 

and that most view with trepidation.

“The panel process is very thorough,” says one project proponent who has been through it a 

number of times. “You’ve got to be kind of a masochist, but it’s the most open grading process 

I’ve ever seen. They work it over. It’s truly a good process.”

Some proponents have suggested that the panel send more detailed signals ahead of time about 

how it will decide on its priorities, possibly by including more detail in the annual request for 

proposals about its strategic priorities. But others appreciate that the RFP doesn’t spell out all the

panel members’ priorities, arguing that this leaves the door open for “out of the box” proposals 
The Big Picture: Program Infrastructure and Administration

32 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

that could not have been 

anticipated but that do 

meet program 

requirements and fill a 

genuine need. It is a 

yearly challenge, when 

the Forest Service CFRP 

staff writes its RFP, to 

ensure that the tension 

between providing too 

much detail in the RFP 

and too little is creative 

rather than simply 

confusing.

The panel develops its 

recommendations using a 

consensus-based process, 

not by voting. Early on, 

some panel members would dig in their heels and take a strong and uncompromising stance. “I 

want this on the record!” they’d say of a particular criticism, perhaps more concerned about 

staking out a political position than with working to shape proposals as effectively as possible. 

But over time panel members have learned to compromise, to be willing to alter their own 

preconceptions about what makes a project worthwhile. One panel member said he came onto the 

panel believing that he had to represent certain interests, as on a voting panel, and only came to 

learn over time that he needed to assess every proposal with the same skepticism and curiosity. As 

a result, panel members engage in frank discussions on all aspects of a proposal’s strengths and 

weaknesses, and often change their minds as they learn about and come to understand the 

perspectives of other panel members.

Perhaps the most powerful lesson of the panel is that its members have always reached consensus 

by thoroughly evaluating each proposal using a process that values diverse points of view. Panel 

members do not just dictate that project proponents include elements of consensus and 

collaboration; they model that behavior for all project proponents to see. That helps to filter a 

philosophy of consensus throughout the program. When writers of failed proposals see their 

project’s weaknesses specifically listed, those who will succeed in the following year are often 

those who collaborate to address those weaknesses—often by reaching out to new project 

partners.

The weeklong panel meeting is not the only occasion for fostering the program’s “social 

capital”—the intangible but real benefits that result from an investment of time and energy in one 

another. Panel members also agree in their bylaws to support the recommendations of the panel 

when they return to their homes and interest groups. Another opportunity to build the program’s 

“social capital” comes at the annual workshop, which is held in January and provides active and 

potential grantees and agency personnel a chance to learn from one another. The workshop 

typically features 3 days of presentations and project reports that, in the aggregate, provide a well 

rounded overview of the entire program. CFRP grantees are required to attend the annual 

workshop as a condition of their grant award.

Figure 8. The CFRP Technical Advisory Panel for 2008-2009
The Big Picture: Program Infrastructure and Administration

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 33

“The annual (workshop) is CFRP 101,” says one program veteran. “When you’re a new person 

and have no idea what to expect, you learn an awful lot.”

Some of that learning comes in a highly directed way, as forest CFRP coordinators and officials 

familiar with NEPA give presentations, or as particular topics such as workers’ compensation or 

marketing issues are discussed. But many participants say that the more important learning takes 

place informally, through peer-to-peer networking and brainstorming. It’s a good example of how 

investing in social capital—in this case, in organizers providing a meeting opportunity, and in 

participants taking the time to attend the workshop—provides benefits that really can’t be 

planned in advance.

Lessons Learned

Funding for any program like CFRP needs to be noncompetitive with other agency needs.

Especially as emergency firefighting costs continue to rise, funding needs to be specifically 

dedicated so that there’s no risk funds will be siphoned off for other purposes.

Build a diverse panel whose members have identified and diverse skill sets, such as business 

acumen. Proposals need to be judged on numerous qualities, and assessing them requires experts 

from an array of fields who are willing to learn. Panel members must have standing and be 

respected in their fields, so that they can advocate for and support the panel’s collaborative 

decisionmaking process and recommendations when they return home. 

Respect and adopt the recommendations of the review panel, recognizing that not doing so 

would undermine the collaborative process.

Allow for flexibility in the proposal review process. The CFRP has refined the Request for 

Proposals each year in response to panel recommendations, leading to a continual improvement in 

the quality of proposals and program effectiveness.

Use advisory panel meetings and annual workshops as opportunities for learning. Potential 

project proponents, potential panel members, and involved agency officials should all plan to 

attend a panel meeting and/or annual workshop before they become involved, so that they can get 

a sense of what the program is about, and how decisions are made.

Conduct panel meetings and workshops professionally. Professional facilitation of these 

meetings, by specialists with no stake in a particular outcome, has helped them to run smoothly.

Require CFRP grantees to attend an annual workshop to share lessons learned and network 

among project partners.

Be clear in RFPs about what the panel wants—but don’t be too restrictive. It’s important to 

think strategically and even to capitalize on current issues and concerns, especially regarding 

large-scale issues such as cross-jurisdictional landscape-scale planning, climate change, and 

creating sustainable local employment. Be open to new, innovative and unanticipated ideas and 

proposals. 

Ensure that planners spend time in the field. Regional office staff, field coordinators, and even 

planners for some individual projects are often over committed to office work, but there are great 

payoffs to spending even small amounts of time in the field with project partners. 
The Big Picture: Program Infrastructure and Administration

34 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

In His Own Words: Walter Dunn

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Latin America. That formed a lot of my philosophy in working 

with communities and resolving conflicts in areas with great disparities in wealth. When I went 

back to visit projects, what led to their success or failure was more the durability of their 

partnerships than technical decisions such as spacing of the trees. As a natural resource manager, 

that was quite a surprise to me. A lot of the concepts in the CFRP were originally developed 

around the world—if you want communities to be involved in and take ownership of natural 

resource issues, they have to be involved in planning and implementing them. CFRP grantees are 

extremely unlikely to damage the resource because of the ownership factor.

The grant period is a time to experiment and take some risks. The good projects then seek their 

own direction—they’re able to adapt in a way that fits the resources that are available. That’s the 

idea of Federal grants, to try out new ideas that would be unlikely to attract support from the 

usual funders. The question is, of the successful projects that have proven they can be 

selfsufficient, how many have been replicated by someone else who sees it and says, hey, I want 

to do that? That’s the true measure of success.

It’s surprised me how strong the support for the program has been from above. The CFRP is a big 

departure from the world of contracts, where the agency decides what to do and hires someone to 

do it. The Forest Service has not traditionally been an organization that used Federal grants much. 

I get frustrated with it sometimes, but this is just like any model of change in a big organization.

Walter Dunn is program manager for the CFRP.

“You have to have a group of people who imbue the program with a philosophy 

and carry it through”

—Rick DeIaco, former technical advisory 

panel member and CRFP project coordinator
Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 35

About This Report

This report was compiled from comments made during two 1-day workshops, the first held in 

Santa Fe in January 2009, at the close of the annual CFRP workshop, and the second with a 

smaller group that was held in Albuquerque that May. Attendees included Forest Service officials, 

technical advisory panel members, and participants in numerous past and ongoing CFRP projects. 

During both workshops facilitated discussions focused on the successes and challenges of the 

program, as well as on recommendations that might be of use to planners of similar programs.

Research for the report was also culled from the following written sources:

• The New Mexico Forest Restoration Series of working papers published by the New 

Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute 

(http://www.nmfwri.org/restoration-papers)

• Monitoring guidebooks and reports published by the Northern Arizona University 

Ecological Restoration Institute and the New Mexico Forest and Watershed 

Restoration Institute (http://www.nmfwri.org/collaborative-forest-restorationprogram)

• An assessment report on the entire CFRP prepared by a national assessment team in 

2005 (http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/spf/cfrp/monitoring/pdf/mp-assess-122005.pdf)

• CFRP Technical Advisory Panel Multiparty Assessment Subcommittee Findings and 

Recommendations Report (August 5-6, 2008)

In addition, personal interviews with CFRP officials, panel members, and participants involved in 

CFRP-funded projects were essential in completing the research.

The report was written by freelance journalist Peter Friederici, with assistance by Larry Fisher, 

U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, Rosemary Romero, Romero Consulting, 

Rob Williams, Meridian Institute, and Walter Dunn, USDA Forest Service.

Participants:

Lessons Learned Workshop, May 11, 2009, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Bob Berrens University of New Mexico

Bryan Bird Wild Earth Guardians

Anne Bradley The Nature Conservancy

Abel Camarena Isleta Pueblo 

Carl Colonius Rocky Mountain Youth Corps

Rick DeIaco Village of Ruidoso

Michael Deubel Gila Area Restoration and Thinning

Roberta Deubel Gila Area Restoration and Thinning

Walter Dunn USDA Forest Service

Larry Fisher U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution

Ian Fox USDA Forest Service

Peter Friederici Freelance journalist
About this Report

36 Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned

John Harrington New Mexico State University

Eytan Krasilowski Forest Guild

Delfinia Montano U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Reuben Montes USDA Forest Service

Jerry Payne USDA Forest Service

Ignacio Peralta USDA Forest Service

Brent Racher Restoration Solutions, LLC

Kent Reid New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute

Rosemary Romero Romero Consulting

Melissa Savage Four Corners Institute

Julia Vasquez La Lama Community

Gilbert Vigil Pueblo of Tesuque

Ann Watson Santo Domingo Tribe

Gordon West Gila WoodNet

Rob Williams Meridian Institute

CFRP Annual Workshop/Lessons Learned 

Open Space Workshop, January 29, 2009, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Mila Allen Mt. Taylor Millwork, Inc./Mt. Taylor Machine LLC

Arturo Archuleta NCWMEDD/MLECT

Phil Archuleta P&M Plastics, Inc.

Glen Barrow SBS Wood Shavings

Sherry Barrow SBS Wood Shavings

Bryan Bird Wild Earth Guardians

Don Bright USDA Forest Service

Gail Campbell Alamo Navajo School Board

Cody Deines Silver Dollar Racing & Shavings

Kathy Deines Silver Dollar Racing & Shavings

Roberta Dembel Alternative Forestry Unlimited

Tori Derr Crane Collaborations

Walter Dunn USDA Forest Service

Bill Ferranti Alamo Navajo School Board

Ian Fox USDA Forest Service

Jerry Payne USDA Forest Service

Peter Friederici Freelance journalist

Glenn Griffin Gila Tree Thinners

Patrick Griego Griego Logging LLC
About this Report

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program: Lessons Learned 37

Sterling Grogan Biophilia Foundation

Mike Henio Ramah Navajo Chapter

Jan-Willem Jansens Earth Works Institute

Tom Jervis National Audobon Society

Eytan Krasilovsky Forest Guild

Ellis Margolis University of Arizona

Katherine Mattor Colorado State University

Linda Middleton Alamo Navajo School Board

Gabriel Montes Bosque Carpentry

Jeff Morton Santo Domingo Pueblo

Yolanda Nava National Hispanic Cultural Center

David Old Old Wood LLC

Shiloh Old Old Wood LLC

Ignacio Peralta USDA Forest Service

Jennifer Pratt Miles Meridian Institute

Rosemary Romero Romero Consulting

Alicia San Gil USDA Forest Service

Juan Sanchez Chilili Land Grant

Clint Sando Sandia Pueblo

Nathan Schroeder Pueblo of Santa Ana

Todd Schulke Center for Biological Diversity

Terrell Treat State of New Mexico

John Ussery Las Comunidades

Gilbert Vigil Pueblo of Tesuque

Edward Wallhagen Ramah Navajo Chapter

David Warnack USDA Forest Service

Ann Watson Santo Domingo Tribe

Gordon West Gila WoodNet

Rob Williams Meridian Institute

Gina Wolff Pueblo of Tesuque