Search Results - A Toolbox of Resources - National Forest Foundation

March 25, 2021

2020 Shared Stewardship Peer Learning Sessions Lessons Learned: How People Are Working Across Agreements and Different Systems & Using Cross-Boundary Tools

As land managers shift their focus to landscape-scale treatments, the traditional model of developing a project proposal, funding, implementation, monitoring, and adaptation also must shift. The resources required for such a transition include both the tangible, like funding and research and the intangible, like place-based knowledge and local labor. These resources are numerous, but accessing them requires robust relationships and coordination among federal, state, local, tribal, and private partners for landscape-scale and cross-boundary success.

March 23, 2021

"Understanding Collaboration", USDA Forest Service National Collaboration Cadre, January 2021.

Collaboration supplements traditional public participation with more focused activities that will typically allow more meaningful contributions. Collaboration requires considerable time and effort for everyone and should be undertaken when the collaborative potential is high. Collaboration can build and maintain productive working relationships and trust and capacity, both internally and externally, well beyond the immediate issue or situation.

January 28, 2019

Tools: Best Practices for Forest Collaboratives Engaged in Litigation (January 28, 2019)

This document articulates lessons learned by the Panhandle Forest Collaborative as they went through the Tower/Grizzly Fire Salvage lawsuit.

January 28, 2019

Template: Project Updates for Forest Collaboratives (January 28, 2019)

This document explains the purpose of updating collaborative groups on the status of Forest projects, provides a template for doing so, and provides guidelines for what information to share.

January 28, 2019

Best Practices Guide: Taking Meeting Notes & Creating Meeting Records

This document explains the importance of a meeting record, shows you how to take good meeting notes and create useful meeting records, and provides a meeting record template.

January 16, 2017

Best Practice: Collaborative Decision Rule Options

Consensus is the standard decision rule for collaborative groups. In this best practice, we explain consensus, and share other decision rule examples for your collaborative group to consider.

January 3, 2017

The Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI): The Role of Collaboration in Achieving Outcomes

This white paper describes the successes, challenges, and evolution of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) collaborative process as told by the stakeholders and U.S. Forest Service staff. The white paper was authored by Bryce Esch and Diane Vosick, and published by the Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern Arizona University.

January 2, 2017

Branching Out: Engaging Forest Stakeholders through Collaborative Design (Interactive Tool)

The National Forest Foundation enlisted the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) to study stakeholder engagement in collaboratives that advise the United States Forest Service in the agency’s stewardship of National Forest System lands. The HNMCP team designed this tool, which conveners, facilitators, and collaborative members can use to identify collaborative design elements (e.g., caucusing) that can aid groups in achieving their work goals or overcoming barriers to stakeholder engagement.

January 2, 2017

Branching Out: Engaging Forest Stakeholders through Collaborative Design (White Paper)

The Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program team developed this white paper, which condenses research findings from a project to study stakeholder engagement in collaboratives that advise the United States Forest Service in the agency’s stewardship of National Forest System lands.

May 9, 2016

Facilitating Collaborative Public Decisions

Whether you are a stakeholder, facilitator, agency official or student, this tool can help you understand and facilitate real-world public decision making processes. Using multimedia examples drawn from the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, the tool enables you to explore strategies for facilitating the different stages of collaborative decision making. This tool was shared by the Ecosystem Management Initiative, University of Michigan.