Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program

Learning Topic

National Framework of Indicators: Background

At least one Forest Service representative and one collaborative partner from all ten of the currently funded Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLRP) projects, the Washington Office of the Forest Service (Forest Management), the National Forest Foundation, and others met in Denver on June 7-8, 2011 to work towards creating a draft proposal for a national CFLR framework of outcomes and indicators. Forest Management supported the workshop to develop a small set of national-level outcomes and indicators that can be used to "roll up" data to effectively communicate to Congress and other national audiences the comprehensive impact of CFLR.

Guiding principles used in drafting the indicators:

• Simple
• Affordable
• Responsive to the direction of the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (which established CFLR)
• Supported as much as possible by existing sources of data
• Maximize individual project autonomy
• Minimize additional reporting requirements

Click here for an Overview of CFLRP National Indicator Workshop 6-2011.

Purpose of A National Framework of Indicators

What the national framework of outcomes and indicators IS about:

• The ability to tell part of a national story about CFLR
• Measure outcomes and indicators consistently across projects so the data can be "rolled up"
• A 30,000 foot level, coarse-scale picture of CFLR’s impacts

What the national framework of outcomes and indicators IS NOT about:

• Answering research questions
• Informing adaptive management
• The “be all and end all” of monitoring or reporting
• Telling the entire CFLR story
• Replacing individual CFLR site monitoring plans

Proposed Set of Indicators

NFF submitted the following documents to the Forest Service on July 29, 2011:

• CFLRP Proposed Set of National Indicators (PDF)
• CFLRP Leveraged Funds spreadsheet (Excel spreadsheet for Leveraged Funds)

The Process Used to Develop the Proposed Indicators

After the workshop at which the framework of indicators was substantially developed, the National Forest Foundation gathered input, responses, and suggestions regarding the proposed indicators through July 15, 2011. Using this input, the NFF compiled a revised set of draft indicators and then sent them on to the Washington Office of Forest Management for consideration of how to integrate them into national reporting for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.

To hear the recording of the web conference on August 17, 2011 with an overview of the proposed set of indicators and an update from the Washington Office of the Forest Service about the review process, CLICK HERE.

On June 29, 2011, a web conference was held to present the draft indicators and provide an initial opportunity for input. To view a recording of that web conference, CLICK HERE.