The Institute's feasibility study of an Oregon Certification Standard was released today. Click here for the Oregon Department of Forestry's news release.
Download the report and the reference matrix.

Download Press Kit [.pdf]

The Pinchot Institute and Winrock’s American Carbon Registry (ACR) announced today a partnership to pilot the Forest Health-Human Health Initiative, the world’s first demonstration of linking forest carbon projects with affordable health care services for forest landowners. 

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Referencing the Pinchot Institute for Conservation's report entitled, "Managing Deer in the Commonwealth: A Study of Pennsylvania and other States," John Hayes of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explores forest regeneration with reduced deer herds. Please click here for the article and click here for more information on the report.

On Thursday, the town of Vernonia, Oregon, broke ground for an innovative K-12 school that will double as a community center. The school will also function as a center of rural sustainability. Oregon university students will conduct research on how timber towns, like Vernonia, can use their forest resources to reinvent themselves. Please click here for the article, written by The Oregonian Editorial Board.

U.S. producers of wood pellets will likely need to meet or exceed sustainability standards set by the European Union for solid biofuels in order access the European export market. Two reports have recently been published that examine the economic, environmental and policy implications of the expanding wood pellet market...

Click here to continue reading this article from Biomass Magazine.

The Chesapeake Bay Program reports on Small Watershed Grants given by the USFS. The Pinchot Institute will use $120,000 from the USFS for eastern brook trout habitat credits. The project will purchase credits for protection and enhancement of coldwater stream eastern brook trout habitat in the Cacapon/Lost River watershed in Hardy, Hampshire and Morgan Counties. Please click here for the article.

New report from the Pinchot Institute conveys findings and recommendations from the FY 2012 Programmatic Monitoring and Evaluation of the role of local communities in the development and implementation of stewardship contracts and agreements on the National Forest System and lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Pinchot Institute releases FY 2011 report on stewardship contracts and agreements

New data shows that trees can significantly improve air quality in metropolitan areas like Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC by filtering out pollution that is damaging to human health.

The loss of certain forest ecosystems may be inevitable in a future shaped by climate change, the chief of the Forest Service said yesterday.

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell delivered his frank assessment of the challenges posed by global warming yesterday as the guest speaker for the 2013 Pinchot Distinguished Lecture, hosted by the Pinchot Institute for Conservation at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. He stressed that his agency, now more than a century old, will need to adjust its standards and practices quickly to keep up with the rapid pace of ecosystem change under global warming.

"I can't stress this enough: The things we learned in school -- what's right for this stand of trees, what's right for this watershed -- might not work in the future," he said.

Among the changes, the Forest Service may have to suspend its long-standing mandate of restoring ecosystems that have experienced disturbance events, he said.

"There are certain areas that we are not going to be able to maintain. There are places we've seen where aspen [trees] have been lost, and we've gone in and tried to restore them, when the reality is, we've lost the site, it's not coming back."

Read the full article on ClimateWire (paywall)

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell yesterday urged Congress to permanently authorize an expiring program that allows proceeds from timber sales to be used for forest restoration, arguing it enjoys broad bipartisan support.

Tidwell said a recovering housing market has generated more demand for wood products, which could allow the agency to raise more revenues to fund forest restoration projects.

At a hearing before the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Energy and Forestry, Tidwell also discussed the effects of sequester cuts, the success of collaborative planning and the Bureau of Land Management's new hydraulic fracturing rule.

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