History

Celebrating Ten Years of Local, Sustainable Forestry

Inspired by the neighbor-to-neighbor model of Vermont Family Forests, “I thought we’d try to create a township level organization, built from the ground up, and call it Wisconsin Family Forests,” he said.  “I had asked David Brynn of VFF if we could use the Family Forests name, and he said, ‘sure,’ as long as we supported family forestry.” Family forests are defined as woodlands owned by families or private individuals, whether for hunting, recreation, or the simple pleasure of owning woods. “Family forestry” is managing those private woodlands to produce what their owners want, from wildlife and beautiful trees to a forest that will thrive for generations.

The goal of Samsel and the other founders of Wisconsin Family Forests was, and still is, to provide the information and resources that family woodland owners need to understand and improve their woods through trusted neighbors. This, in turn, builds communities of woodland owners that learn from each other, help each other, and even cooperate in hiring professional help or arranging a timber harvest.

There’s a big need for information, said WFF board member Dave Callewaert. “There are a lot of people out there who would like to manage their property better but don’t know where to go or who to turn to.” 
By 1999 Samsel was convinced that the Family Forest model offered an effective way to address this need, and had gathered a group of similarly concerned woodland owners and forestry professionals together to found WFF and do some strategic planning.

Callewaert had known Samsel from the days when they both worked at Johnson Wax, and when Callewaert retired he renewed the friendship. “Clyde had this little project he was working on called Wisconsin Family Forests, and he said I had to get involved and he got me to come to the strategic planning session,” Callewaert recalled.

WFF’s two goals - of promoting sustainable forestry at the local level, and building communities of neighbors around a common interest in sustainable forestry - were established at that meeting. And Callewaert, along with several others, was hooked.
The first WFF alliance was established by Clyde Samsel and Martin Pionke in the town of Deerfield in Waushara County. “That alliance is still the largest and most vital of all the alliances in the state,” said Alan Haney, founding president and still a director of WFF, and Professor Emeritus of Forestry at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. “They have cooperative timber sales, they do cooperative consulting work, they do it all. Where there is good leadership at the local level, WFF has done everything we envisioned and dreamed. And it has been as much of a social success as a forest management success. Where the groups have really gotten going, it has become a real community focus, with potlucks, walks in the woods, work days and prairie burnings.” But WFF didn’t take off across the state as envisioned. “When we started we were naïve enough to think this is such a great thing, it’ll grow by leaps and bounds,” Haney recalled.

After using up its initial funding sources, WFF languished for a few years, Callewaert recalls.  “As we were moving along, one of the observations I made is that people are up to their eyeballs in meetings and organizations and groups. The last thing I think most people want to do is to belong to yet another group that’s going to meet once a month and talk about managing your woodlands.” Clearly, another method was needed to make it fun and simple for woodland owners to learn about sustainable forestry.

Paul Pingrey, the DNR Private Forestry Specialist, contacted WFF to help with a pilot to study some new methods of reaching more landowners. The pilot intended to study the concepts of comprehensive plans, coordinated harvests and using local forest coordinators. To focus the pilot they decided that what was needed was a little qualitative market research, to find out what woodland owners wanted. “It was absolutely eye opening,” Callewaert said. “We found people are really interested in their land, are not aware of the needs of their woods, don’t know whom to trust and they loved to have a personal visit from an expert on THEIR property and talk about THEIR land.”

“Out of that developed the Woodland Advocate Program. Instead of building a community alliance, we recruit a volunteer woodland owner, and they go and meet with other woodland owners in their area, one on one, on their property, and talk about THEIR land. The advocates are a conduit for resources, if the owner wants information. The advocate will get them assistance in putting together a plan, if the owner wants to.  There’s no agenda, other than to get people to think about their property, and about sustainability,” Callewaert said. “We’re non-profit, we don’t make any money, and we’re not tied to any timber company.”

“So with Woodland Advocates we’re still working at the town level. WFF alliances are possible, but are not required. You don’t have to be a member, you don’t have to pay dues and you don’t have to go to more meetings. Woodland Advocates today are what WFF is all about, and I’m very encouraged by the results we have to date.”

“So often we get asked, “Why aren’t you a part of Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association (WWOA)?”” said WFF board member Dave Callewaert. “From my perspective, the Woodland Advocate Program without a doubt should be part of WWOA. WWOA offers all kinds of educational opportunities, but in all the years I’ve belonged, nobody has ever called me and said, ‘hey, Dave, I’d like to come talk to you about your woodlands.’ But that’s what a Woodland Advocate does.”