Michelle Joy Baumflek
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 228
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The holistic, landscape-based approach of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) in the United States emphasizes the importance of addressing three components of forest management: ecology, community, and economy. Many believe this approach represents an important and positive paradigm shift in natural resource management. In Vermont, as well as many other parts of the United States, parcelized forest ownership presents challenges to the achievement of SFM on private property. These challenges include that of applying concepts of landscape-scale management over a mosaic of small landownerships while addressing ecological, economic, and social dynamics. Many authors have suggested a need for new institutions that are better capable of addressing the integrated, boundary-crossing nature of SFM on private lands. In Vermont, partnerships involving nonprofit organizations are implementing innovative management strategies to promote SFM which address the challenges of parcelization. In so doing, nonprofit groups are branching out from traditional roles of advocacy and public goods protection to address not only the ecological, but also economic and community aspects of forest management. Examining the strategies, organizational roles, challenges and perceived permanence of these partnerships provides a greater understanding of the nature of these new institutional arrangements for SFM. This study asks the question: How do partnerships involving nonprofit organizations in Vermont attempt to achieve goals of sustainable forest management in the context of a parcelized landscape?