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WHFP Wisconsin’s Healthy Forest Program The Wisconsin Healthy Forest Program (WHFP) is an exciting new effort to provide sustainable forestry advice on private woodlands. The purpose of this program is to help woodland owners protect their property from invasive plants and improve the wildlife habitat, recreation, beauty, timber, clean water and other natural benefits. The mission goes to the core of many critical forestry issues that include combating invasive species, forest fragmentation, and forest certification. A partnership of Federal, State and private organizations in Wisconsin that care about the quality of woodlands in the state has put this program together. They want to promote healthy forests by assisting private woodland owners who own a large part of the wooded land in Wisconsin. The Healthy Forest Program is designed to reach landowners who have not previously taken advantage of professional forestry assistance. This program makes use of a local forest coordinator who links foresters and other resource professionals to landowners. The forest coordinator serves as a trusted advisor to assist landowners in their goal to take care of their woods. The forest coordinator has personal experience caring for woodlands that can benefit and protect the individual landowners. Wisconsin Family Forests, a trusted landowner group, is the sponsor for the local forest coordinator in the two pilots. When this program expands, other trusted groups and organizations will sponsor forest coordinators as well. In 2006, the program partners created a comprehensive overview plan of the woodlands in each of the pilot areas. Foresters have been visiting the land owned by participants to discuss each owner’s goals for their land. The foresters suggest possible options and activities that could help them meet their goals to protect and improve it. The ultimate goal of this program is to help landowners carry out the activities identified in their forestry plans. The program is voluntary and it offers various options depending on the needs and desires of the landowner. The pilot sites will focus on people who have ten to one hundred acres of woods. The plans are free during the pilot. More involved and optional services such as invasive species control, timber harvest assistance or tree planting would involve reasonable fees. There are no membership requirements or long-term commitments required. The pilots will compare satisfaction levels to see if landowners have any preference in working with a DNR forester or a private consulting forester to get their plans written. The Baraboo Bluffs pilot is offering a coordinated timber harvest to demonstrate how a timber sale can be completed with the help of a project sponsor. The project is organizing a timber harvest for interested participants with the help of contracted foresters. The coordinated harvest includes tracts that can stand on their own and small sales that need to be grouped in order to be operable. Each landowner is free to accept or reject bids received for their timber. Timber harvested under the pilots will not be certified at this time, but a scoping review is planned to determine how well the project might fit into third-party forest certification schemes. Healthy Forest participants will be surveyed in 2008 to evaluate how well the pilots met their needs and how well the plans are being implemented. Costs and benefits will be analyzed and a report prepared to assess long-term potential. The pilot phase is designed to take three years to collect information, build understanding and to work with public policy makers to possibly institutionalize an ongoing, statewide program with public funding. Project Collaborators Wisconsin Family Forests, Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association, Cooperative Development Services, WDNR - Division of Forestry, Clark Forestry, Stora Enso, Dovetail Partners, The Nature Conservancy, UW Dept Forest Ecology, Turner Foundation, Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation. Contact information: Gerry Mich
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