David Laband

Dave Laband and Graeme Lockaby (AU’s Center for Forest Sustainability) recently entered into a partnership with the Alabama Resource Conservation and Development Council, the Geological Survey of Alabama, and the Montgomery Water Works Board to estimate the impact of forest cover on aquifer recharge and to assess the economic feasibility of providing payments to private landowners to manage their land for cover that contributes beneficially to aquifer recharge.

Wayde Morse

Dr. Wayde Morse recently joined the faculty of the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences as a specialist in Human Dimensions of Natural Resources Management. Wayde received his PhD from the University of Idaho and a MS from Colorado State University. In addition to his research experiences in public lands management in the Intermountain region, Wayde has extensive Peace Corps experience in Panama.

Indrajit Majumdar

Indrajit Majumdar and Larry Teeter have received funding from the U.S Forest Service Family Forest Research Center in Amherst, MA to analyze data gathered from the National Woodland Owner Survey regarding the demographics, forest management histories, future intentions and factors that motivate forest landowners to manage the way they do. The study has a national scope and will compare and contrast owners from different demographic backgrounds as well as from different regions of the country. Two goals of the project are to characterize owner groups in a way that might improve efficiency and effectiveness of outreach programs and to provide new information on the expected future availability of timber from private lands.

David Laband

Dave Laband received a grant from the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council (NUCFAC) to estimate the impact of tree shade on residential electricity consumption. Dave and Post-doctoral Fellow Ram Pandit will statistically estimate one aspect of the economic value of urban forests: reduction in residential energy consumption. Urban trees cast shade on homes and buildings, lowering the inside temperatures and thus reducing the demand for power to cool these buildings during hot times of the year. They will estimate the value of this ecosystem service for homeowners by using multivariate regression analysis to examine the linkages between the extent and density of tree-cast shade on a large sample of residential properties in Auburn, AL and electricity usage at these properties, controlling for other factors that influence electricity consumption.

Larry Teeter & Conner Bailey

Recent grants from the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station are funding two related projects on the development of a biomass/bioenergy sector in Alabama. One will use regional economic impact analysis techniques to estimate the contributions that such an industry would make to different sectors of the economy in terms of employment, income and collected taxes. Various assumptions are being made regarding the forms that development may take including co-generation at coal-fired power plants and cellulosic ethanol production. The other project evaluates opportunities and constraints to bio-fuels production by farmers and landowners, including those with limited resources and assesses the likely impact of growth in the biofuels industry on rural Alabama, including changes in land use patterns, employment opportunities, and income generation. Much of this information will be obtained through structured interviews of researchers, policy-makers, biofuel producers, and both current and prospective users of bio-fuels to estimate future growth of the biofuel industry in Alabama and determine where that growth is likely to occur.

Dr. Daowei Zhang

Daowei Zhang was recently awarded a $310,000 grant from the USDA National Research Initiative to study forest/agricultural land use change in the southern United States. Rapid increases in urbanization, along with market forces and public policy instruments, have altered land use patterns, with consequences for the sustainability of natural resources in the southern United States. Three critical, but understudied aspects associated with land use change are the role of public policy, especially property tax policy, land use change within the forestry and agricultural sectors respectively, and the determinants of land use change at the watershed level. The goal of this study is to improve our understanding of these aspects.

David Laband

Dave Laband recently received a grant to work with Armando Gonzalez-Caban (USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station) to conduct "An Empirical Analysis of Factors that Influence Non-Government Organization (NGO) Appeals of Fuels Reduction Proposals".  

Project Abstract:  Emerging public policy (e.g., President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative) is focusing on reducing forest fuel loads as a means of reducing the incidence/severity of catastrophic wildfires. However, implementation of fuels reduction actions has proven to be problematic, because appeals and lawsuits filed by individuals and environmental groups delay or derail specific proposed fuels reduction actions.  Using GAO data on the disposition of 305 appealable fuels reduction proposals made in 2001 and 2002, we employ multivariate logistic regression analysis to identify factors that significantly influence the likelihood that a specific fuels reduction proposal is appealed. Our findings will assist land managers in designing fuels reduction proposals that are less likely to attract public opposition.

Romania

In February 2003, Dr. Mark Dubois and Ms. Laura Robinson traveled to Romania to continue work on a project with three private forest landowner associations. This trip was part of a larger project with Auburn University, World Learning's Romanian American Sustainable Partnership, and the United States Department of Agriculture South-East Consortium on International Development. There were two main goals for this trip. First was to support forest dependent Romanian communities and private forest owner associations for the world forestry market. Second was to aid in strengthening the networking capability of the private forest land owner associations.

David Laband

David Laband is featured in Edward Elgar's fourth edition of Who's Who in Economics, published in late summer 2003. The reference only includes living economists whose work was most frequently cited during the period 1990–2000.

Larry Teeter

Larry Teeter was a recent speaker (February 2003) at a Yale Forest Forum luncheon. His talk was titled Forest Policy for Private Forestry: Old Issues, New Actors.

Dr. David Wear

In January 2003, Dr. David Wear, Project Leader and Economist with the USDA Forest Service, visited Auburn as a Weaver Lecturer. Dr. Wear gave an overview of the findings of the Southern Forest Resource Assessment, a multi-faceted review of the status of forest resources in the southern US. Dr. Wear was co-leader of the assessment project with John Greis.

Laura Robinson

In December, 2002 the Forest Policy Center added another member, Laura Robinson, a Research Associate in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences. Laura in currently working on a project in Romania with Mark Dubois, helping landowners make the transition to a market oriented economy.

Daowei Zhang

Daowei Zhang was recently (November) awarded the Forest Policy Center's Research Productivity Award for his exceptional record of publishing and grantsmanship during the 2002 academic year.

The Canadian Political Science Association recently awarded the 2001 John McMenemy award to Steven Bernstein and Benjamin Cashore for the best article in the past volume of the Canadian Journal of Political Science at their 2001 annual meeting. The prize was established in honour of the Journal's Administrative Editor, Professor John McMenemy of Wilfrid Laurier University, who has, since 1977, contributed greatly to the success of the Association and the Société's flagship journal. The Canadian Journal of Political Science, a quarterly journal of the highest international standards, is distributed to approximately 2000 scholars and institutions around the world.

Bernstein, S. and Benjamin Cashore. 2000. Globalization, four paths of internationalization and domestic policy change: The case of EcoForestry in British Columbia, Canada, Canadian Journal of Political Science,Toronto, 33(1):67-99.