The Nature Conservancy Board Meeting
February 5, 2010 Print
Thank you.
Well, it has been three years and you are still inviting me back, so I want to thank you for that, and for the welcome. Good to see so many familiar faces, so many that have done so much for our natural resources for so many years.
I have come to trust TNC for a lot of things over the last three years, to respect your advice and leadership. More than anything, I rely on you as a barometer for when we are moving too fast or too slow, or if we begin to lose focus on what is important.
This job can get you bogged down in the day-to-day, sometimes at the risk to the larger perspective. When that starts to happen, I know that I can rely on TNC to, well, "point that out" to me and to the department. Your guidance on the tough issues has been invaluable time after time, and I want to thank you for that.
That steady support has been even more valuable over the last eighteen months or so, when so many decisions have been pressured by the recession; the budget cuts, the downturn in the timber industry, the search for sustainable green energy and all the other forces making new demands on our forests. Forestry issues are tough enough during the best of times. Without your new ideas and readiness to adapt, we would not have been able to do a fraction of what we have done.
I'm sorry that our Chief David Lytle couldn't be here today, but I want to fill you in on what we are doing and why we are doing it.
I'll keep this as brief as possible. I want to open up and take your questions and listen to your ideas.
Our forest management priorities remain to...
*Minimize damage to the economic and geographic sectors that depend on our forests.
*Stabilize and improve the health of our forests.
*Improve the marketability of our forest products.
*Encourage research and training that will ensure lasting forest health.
*Save and unify the most forestland we can.
In short, we are preparing our forests for the end of the recession. When the economic corner turns, we will be ready to revitalize both our forests and our forest industry, prepared to create the most sustainable jobs in the shortest period of time while still preserving, unifying and increasing our forest stock.
If we stick to these priorities, with the help of TNC and others, we will exit this recession with more sustainable timber jobs, more forest acres protected, and more public access for more people in more places than ever before.
I want to give you a quick rundown of what Forestry accomplished this year. As I go through the list, bear in mind that if it is government’s mandate, during a recession, to provide more service to more citizens with a smaller budget and reduced staff, then our Division of Forestry is exactly the kind of government that is working the way it should.
Our most significant project, which literally could not have been done without you, was the purchase agreement to secure the 16,000-acre Vinton Furnace Experimental Forest. You helped us pull together a coalition that includes Governor Strickland, the US Forest Service, American Electric Power, The Conservation Fund, forest industry leaders, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Division of Wildlife, elected officials, and more than 200 stakeholder groups.
The Vinton is the last great place in Ohio, and the largest single purchase in the history of ODNR. If we had done nothing else last year, that would have been enough. But Ohio has other needs.
We created the Ohio Woodlands Job Corps. Using federal stimulus funds, we put 66 people to work in our forests, and trained them for life-long careers as stewards of the health of our natural lands. Next month, we will be advertising to hire another 66.
We partnered with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to remove invasive plants and improve forest health practice on private lands.
We put to use $2 million from Congresswoman Kaptur's office, removing trees infested or killed by the Emerald Ash Borer.
We are within sight of our goal to have all state forests certified as sustainably managed. By the end of the year, we are confident that auditors will find us in compliance with the environmental and social standards set forth by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
TNC has been a strong supporter of this effort, and we are grateful for your cooperation.
In the year ahead, in the face of forest fragmentation, we will expand on the guiding principle that forests must be kept as forests.
TNC's Sunshine Ridge will put this principle into practice, connecting Shawnee State Forest with the Edge of Appalachia Preserve. It is a bold vision to protect our natural heritage and add value to the economy.
The forestlands once held by Mead Paper are mostly intact, and include key parcels around Lake Katherine and Shawnee State Forest. With your leadership, we can work together to protect these properties just as we did the Vinton Furnace Experimental Forest.
When you put all these things together, they make a pretty impressive list. When you consider (that) they were done during the worst part of the recession, they are extraordinary. Governor Strickland said (in the State of the State) that Ohio has defied its circumstance. Our Division of Forestry, with its record of excellence in defiance of circumstance, is as good as it gets.
We are getting ready, but we’re not standing still. Imagine what we can do, together, when the recession ends and when we can put even more tools in our toolbox.
I’m looking forward to it.