First
Progress Report
July 1986–Dec 1987
University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Cooperative Extension
February 1988
DEVELOPMENT OF THE IHRMP
In 1981, public interest in California’s oak-grass woodlands, currently termed hardwood rangeland, came into sharp focus when the State Board of Forestry received requests from private and public groups to review its policies governing the management and harvesting of hardwood trees on private lands. In 1982 and 1983, two appointed commissions advised the Board to consider adopting new policies that would recognize the great importance of hardwoods in the State. The Hardwood Task Force (HTF) specifically pointed out several areas of need for expanded research directed to improving regeneration and maintaining wildlife habitat diversity. It also called for an aggressive educational effort taking existing and newly developed data and making it available to a wide range of statewide audiences. In 1985, the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC), put forth a comprehensive, 10-year proposal of research and extension specifically addressing the issues raised by the Board’s HTF. The proposal was widely circulated among the public and private sectors and received endorsement from the administrations of both the University and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for budget augmentation for FY 1986-87. UC personnel were involved in several educational and research projects aimed at improving our knowledge about the ecology and management of the State’s hardwood rangelands. P. Muick and J. Bartolome prepared a detailed report describing the status of oak-related research studies in California. L. Fortmann and L. Huntsinger surveyed a sample of landowners having hardwoods to determine their attitudes and oak management activities. P. Passof, J. Clawson, and L. Fitzhugh prepared a comprehensive manual, Preliminary Guidelines for Managing California’s Hardwood Rangelands, that was targeted to ranchers and presented ideas on how to manage their resources from a multiple-use viewpoint. An outstanding demonstration of the manual’s principles was carried out in Butte County by R. Willoughby, the local Farm Advisor. In-house training sessions and workshops involving range and livestock Advisors were initiated throughout the State to inform professional resource managers and landowners about the proposed IHRMP. By the end of 1985, UC was convinced that the prospects of getting a new focused program underway in cooperation with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) were excellent, and appointed P. Passof as the interim manager of the “Hardwood Program” for the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In 1986, with new UC and CDF funds now in place in the Governor’s Budget for FY 1986-87, the two organizations joined forces to develop a cooperative approach to solving the most important problems related to hardwood rangelands. It was decided that the Program required a Policy Advisory Committee, jointly appointed by both the UC and CDF administrations. The Policy Advisory Committee’s first duty was to prioritize a long list of research topics that needed immediate attention. This action led to the development of several requests for proposals that were jointly prepared by a team of UC and CDF representatives. The research grants were to be made available on a competitive basis to the entire research community, including private consultants, educational institutions, and the public sector. Concurrent with getting the research component underway, UC initiated a recruitment for qualified candidates to fill regional Natural Resource Specialist positions with Cooperative Extension. This early step facilitated the hiring of five new Specialists within a few months of having the authorized funds.
Within six weeks of the Governor’s budget authorization, “requests for research proposals” were sent to over 130 individuals with a submission deadline of September 22,1986. In October, UC and CDF jointly announced that 18 research projects were funded for FY 86-87. Recipients included five State University campuses, several consultants, and four UC investigators. Over $375,000 was committed for the first-year funding. This funded research covered the four primary goals of the IHRMP: 1) Improvement of Oak Regeneration—6 projects; 2) Maintenance of Wildlife Habitat Diversity—2 projects; 3) Mitigating Unsound Conversions of Hardwood Rangelands—2 projects; and 4) Developing Alternative Range Management Strategies—4 projects. In addition, 4 research projects were directed to hardwood rangeland monitoring concerns.
In November 1986, a major conference was held at the campus of Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, that attracted over 450 researchers, resource managers, and landowners interested in hardwoods. Titled Symposium on Multiple Use Management of California’s Hardwood Resources, the three-day meeting had some 75 papers presented on various aspects of hardwood rangelands. UC Cooperative Extension was one of many co-sponsors of this educational event. The proceedings were published by the US Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Forest & Range Experiment Station and are currently available. Immediately following the Symposium, the Board of Forestry held a public hearing on the direction its future policy should take with respect to regulating hardwood harvesting and management in the State. UC presented its first year and five-year goals and objectives for research and extension-related activities that are keyed to the four major goals noted earlier. In February 1987, the California State Board of Forestry passed a policy statement expressing strong interest and concern for the State’s hardwood resource. In lieu of direct State action in formulating regulations, the Board instead supported an aggressive program of research and education aimed at the major problems facing the State's hardwoods. The Board’s policy calls for a coordinated team effort by a variety of State agencies, including the University of California, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF), the California Department of Fish and Came (CDFG), and the Range Management Advisory Committee (RMAC) to the Board of Forestry.
Each of the partners has an important area of expertise to bring to the expanded effort in hardwood research and education. CDF has a long history of working in the area of technical assistance and education in range and forested areas of the State. Its ranger units are strategically located throughout the State. The CDFG is responsible for management of the State's wildlife, and maintaining habitat needs for wildlife. It conducts applied research, provides technical assistance, and develops management tools to assess the impacts of management activities on wildlife. RMAC is composed of range landowners and interest groups, and provides an analysis of policy alternatives impacting range management to the Board of Forestry and The Resources Agency. The University’s Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program (IHRMP), composed of applied and basic research activities and the delivery of an aggressive educational program, is committed to working closely with these partners to ensure that the most up-to-date information is available, and that efforts addressing problems relating to the hardwood resource are coordinated. It is widely recognized that the problems facing the State's hardwoods vary greatly from region to region. This is the major reason for the regionally-based approach taken by UC in the development of the IHRMP. The other resource management agencies involved in this partnership have a similar decentralized approach to addressing local and regional needs, because of the great diversity in climate, soil, and vegetation throughout California. The six regionally-based Natural Resources Specialists with UC Cooperative Extension are in an excellent position to provide a coordinating role to the partners in hardwood range management, because their job assignment emphasizes local and regional concern within the framework of the broader statewide program. it is the goal of the University to organize regional steering committees composed of the resource managers with CDF’s different regions, the wildlife management supervisors with CDFG’s regions, and regional representatives of RMAC. The role of the steering committees would be to identify regional priorities and to develop programs to address these priorities. The steering committees would help to coordinate the activities of the various partners involved, and ensure an efficient use of resources by each organization.
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