Xi Sigma Pi, the Forestry Honor Society founded at the University of Washington in 1908, is proud to announce the recipients of this year’s research grant funding. After long and hard deliberation, and the careful review of many highly competitive proposals, the following winners were selected:
Two First Place Winners of $500 each: Oliver Jan, “A mechanistic approach towards lignin char reduction and valorization in catalytic fast pyrolysis through bifunctional Pd/ZSM-5 catalysts” (Faculty Advisor: Fernando Resende)
Luyi Li, “The effects of soil parent material and fertilization treatment on the wood quality of Douglas fir in the Pacific Northwest” (Faculty Advisor: Eric Turnblom)
Second Place Winner of $250: Sebastian Tramon, “The mystery of conservation outcomes: Looked through institutional lenses” (Faculty Advisor: Clare Ryan)
Undergraduate Research Winner of $250: Raymond Yap, “Colonization, degradation of Trichloroethylene and comparison of phytotoxicity in plants inoculated with endophyte PDN3” (Faculty Advisor: Sharon Doty)
Congratulations to all of the grant recipients, and Xi Sigma Pi extends a big thank you to the grant review committee!
Earlier this quarter, students in Professor Rob Harrison’s “ESRM 100: Environmental Science” course volunteered at the Beaver Pond Natural Area in Seattle. Working with Ruth Williams, the volunteer organizer, the students removed invasive plants and planted some native species.
Most ESRM 100 students complete a volunteer project as part of the course requirements, which include writing up a summary of their work, including the species they worked with, why they did the work, any problems they encountered, solutions they employed, and environmental benefits of doing their particular project.
For many, says Professor Harrison, the project is the first time they’ve done anything like this kind of restoration work outside—and they enjoy it so much that it often leads to additional environmental service volunteering!
Nothing gets the nervous/excited juices flowing like more faces in the crowd, so come out and support Jesse Langdon tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday, April 24, as he defends his thesis, “Forecasting the impacts of climate change on terrestrial species and protected areas in the Pacific Northwest!”
Part of the Landscape Ecology and Conservation Lab, Langdon’s faculty advisor is Professor Josh Lawler, and his other committee members are Professor Steve West and Elizabeth Gray. He will be giving his talk in the Forest Club Room from 1-2 p.m., with snacks and refreshments provided.
It’s a great opportunity to support a fellow colleague and student, and to help commemorate his years of research and contributions to the SEFS community!
If you want to see fierce incarnate, just ask Sarra Tekola to recite one of her poems—particularly a recent piece about climate change—and see if you don’t get tingles. You can feel her passion burn through every word.
Sarra Tekola has her hands in scores of activities around campus.
“I’ve been accused to being an environmental evangelist before,” says Tekola, a junior at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS), “but you never want to be too overbearing. It’s important not to push people away. There’s a happy medium with not being so extreme, and if we want to do something about climate change, we need to include everyone. Because it isn’t just a political agenda. It’s a global issue that every single person on this Earth needs to become involved in and do something about.”
Poetry plays into Tekola’s desire to make science more accessible and accepted. She doesn’t want to be a scientist who mostly talks to other scientists; she wants to be actively connected to her community and the public. Even when we have an abundance of evidence—as with ocean acidification and climate change, she says—there’s often a disconnect when trying to galvanize the community to accept and act on the available science. “I want to be able to relate to people and help find solutions to climate change, to be able to persuade people and politicians, to convince them.”
With verse, she gets to practice her art of persuasion when she’s reading poems at an “open mic” night on campus, where she often addresses different audiences and perspectives. “I get to talk to people I might not meet at a restoration event or seminar,” she says.
Another of her tactics for fighting climate change denial is connecting collaborators. So far, she’s set up a Facebook page called “Climate Change Crisis Council,” and she hopes to grow the page into a forum where activists, scientists and environmentalists share ideas, opportunities for environmental involvement and research, and also build networks to find solutions for climate change. (If you’re interested in joining, it’s an open group, and you can contact Tekola via that page). Her plan is to build enough momentum to form a campus club that would get students involved in environmental research, work on public outreach and complete sustainability projects at UW through the Campus Sustainability Fund.
One of Tekola’s projects is to mitigate run-off from a gravel road into a salmon stream near her parent’s home in Maple Valley.
Organizing the Climate Change Crisis Council is only the tip of the iceberg for Tekola’s campus activities. In fact, you might be forgiven for thinking she cloned herself when you realize all the research projects she shoehorns into her schedule.
Tekola, whom you might see riding her motorcycle around campus (she drives it to reduce her carbon footprint; she gets 75 mpg!), was born in Seattle and grew up in nearby Maple Valley. She began her college career at Green River Community College in Auburn, Wash., and transferred to the University of Washington (UW) to start her junior year this past fall. She’s now working toward a major in Environmental Science and Resource Management (ESRM), and she’s been sopping up the program’s research opportunities and field trips.
“I like that it’s really hands-on here,” she says. “I had taken a number of environmental courses, but most of them were textbook-based.” It’s one thing to learn about equipment in the classroom and interpret data others have recorded. “But going out in the field and using the equipment, and being able to do it with your own hands—that’s really fun.”
With a crew of three SEFS faculty members and 15 students, and using the northern Rockies as their staging ground, Tekola’s class explored patterns of corvid distribution, elk anti-predator behavior and wolf vigilance, among other research tasks. “It was awesome,” she says. “The Yellowstone trip is something I’d want to do on my own, and to be able to do it for school was really amazing. We got to see a lot of cool things.”
The “coolest,” she says, was when they got to watch—from a safe distance—a wolf pack attacking four bull elk. Three of the elk still had their antlers, but one didn’t, and the wolves had separated him from the others. One wolf ran out ahead and tried to bring down the elk, drawing blood on the run, and Tekola was sure the elk was going to fall. Yet the wounded bull stayed on its feet and staggered into the freezing Lamar River with two other elk, where the three lined up, rump to rump, staring at the wolves on the banks (the wolves wouldn’t enter the icy water, apparently, to avoid water freezing in their paws and injuring them; the warmer months are a different story). The fourth elk had turned to face the wolves, which feinted in and out at him, but the bull managed to ward them off with antlers brandished for about 20 minutes. The wolves ultimately gave up and retreated. It was an incredible display of survival tactics that worked—this time—and the class had front-row seats to the show.
Tekola and other ESRM students investigate an elk kill site in Yellowstone National Park.
On another afternoon, they were heading out to investigate a recent wolf kill site. The elk carcass was only two days old, and Tekola remembers several students asking if they might be disturbing the site—or risk interrupting wolves at meal time. Their answer came right on cue: When they walked within 300 or 400 meters of the kill, a wolf was gnawing on the carcass, and binocular range was as close as they got to the carnage.
These field experiences have been a feast for Tekola, a research hound who’s been devouring every opportunity since she transferred from Green River Community College. “I always try to tell my friends and peers and people in the field what a great opportunity we have here at UW,” she says, “and how they should get involved in research as much as they can.”
Thanks to that hunger, her list of involvements is long and varied.
As part of Professor Tim Essington’s lab at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, Tekola is studying hypoxia in the Hood Canal in Puget Sound. Her research includes seeing how fish are adapting to naturally occurring hypoxia. “It’s been a really fun project, especially dissecting stomachs and trying to identify the contents,” she says.
Tekola is also interning with Friends of the Cedar River Watershed, a nonprofit whose work impacts her hometown. The Cedar River forms in North Bend, eventually flows through Maple Valley and out into the bottom of Lake Washington in Renton. “I sometimes help them write grants or lead restoration projects,” says Tekola, and she especially enjoys sharing how the river contributes to the larger Lake Washington watershed, and also salmon spawning and habitat. “It’s my connection to the community.”
“If time wasn’t such a limiting factor,” says Tekola, “I’d be involved in more stuff!”
For another project she’s spearheading close to home, Tekola recently scored a prestigious scholarship to help complete her research and final year at UW.
In Maple Valley, her parents live on a gravel hill in a rural area. Anytime it rains heavily, the run-off washes into a nearby salmon stream. Tekola’s plan is to create a rain garden to reduce the run-off and protect the stream, and in her spare moments she’s already started monitoring sediment and run-off in her test zone. But the project got a major boost recently when Tekola was awarded a one-year scholarship from the United Negro College Fund and the Merck Company Foundation for the 2013-14 academic year.
The 2013 UNCF-Merck Undergraduate Science Research Scholarship Award will provide Tekola up to $30,000 in funding to cover her independent research expenses, a summer internship and tuition for her senior year. It’s big honor—one of only 15 nationally!—and helps ensure that Tekola can keep pursuing her many ideas and inspirations.
About the only thing slowing her down, in fact, is the turn of a minute hand.
“If time wasn’t such a limiting factor,” she says, “I’d be involved in more stuff!”
Members of the Chinese forestry delegation join SEFS faculty in front of Anderson Hall.
Last week, a delegation from the Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF) visited the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) for two hours of short presentations and discussions on April 3. The delegation included members from the research section of the State Forestry Administration (the equivalent of the U.S. Forest Service), and from the Gansu Province Forestry Department.
Organized by Professor Ivan Eastin and the Center for International Trade in Forest Products (CINTRAFOR), the meeting included a series of talks on forestry issues—first from SEFS faculty members, and then from members of the Chinese delegation.
On the agenda, SEFS presentations included introductions from SEFS Director Tom DeLuca and Professor Indroneil Ganguly; Professor Greg Ettl (“Sustainable Forest Management at Pack Forest”); Professors Stevan Harrell and Tom Hinckley (“Forest Expansion onto Meadowlands, U.S. v. China”); and Professor David Ford (“Overview of Sustainable Forest Management at the Olympic Natural Resources Center”). Madam Hu Zhangcui from CAF then followed with “PRC-GEF Partnership on Land Degradation in Dryland Ecosystems: Current Progress, Achievements and Prospects” before a final discussion session.
Professors Tom Hinckley, foreground, and Steve Harrell coring trees in Yangjuan-Pianshui villages, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, August 2008.
SEFS’ collaboration with Chinese researchers began in 1999, when the UW established a joint program to study environmental challenges in the two countries. Professor Emeritus Tom Hinckley had joined several exploratory trips to Sichuan around that time, visiting a future research site at Jiuzhaigou National Park in the northwestern part of the province.
When the university began an undergraduate student exchange, Professor Hinckley joined Anthropology Professor Steve Harrell and Biology Professor Dick Olmstead in leading a multinational team to Yangjuan Village in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the summer of 2002 to conduct joint research on forest ecology, agriculture, plant biodiversity and local history. Several SEFS (and previously CFR and SFR) students have since conducted research there.
A couple weeks ago in Nature, researchers reported that a probe from the Mars Rover had collected sediments indicating the presence of water and sediments, at some point long ago, that would have been ‘sufficiently benign’ to support microbial life. I’ve always been inspired by space exploration and consider it a worthy pursuit (and the soil scientist in me felt a rush of pride that “sediment” could command such international attention). Yet I couldn’t help but reflect on the irony, or at least the oddness, of scouring the soil of a planet millions of miles away for hints of life, when we have the greatest test ground for life right here on Earth—and where there’s plenty of work left to do to reach a sustainable balance with our own natural world.
We live on a planet where water is abundant and temperatures are uniquely hospitable. Solar radiation is tempered by a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen, and minerals in the soil support plant life and other conditions crucial to our existence. In the Pacific Northwest, in particular, we have the perfect combination of light, warmth and precipitation to grow trees tall and wide. And although most natural resources are not currently at a crisis point (at least for human uses), our historical patterns of population growth and consumption—coupled with emerging challenges associated with climate change—could soon oblige us to face an age of natural resource scarcity.
So while some call space the “final frontier,” I would argue our next true frontier is finding a sustainable balance of natural resource management and use on our own planet. There’s real ground for exploration and discovery here, for ambitious science and imaginative thinking, and I’m proud that our research at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) is at the leading edge of this field—and on multiple coordinated fronts.
Our mission at SEFS highlights sustainable landscape management with the hope that our land-use practices today will provide fiber, forests, clean water, wildlife habitat and human wellness for generations to come. Our students press into this frontier of sustainability by acquiring knowledge of current and past approaches to land management, a clear understanding of human dependence on managed landscapes, and a deep and fundamental appreciation of how natural ecosystems function. With these tools, our students are encouraged to envision how managed ecosystems of the future can simultaneously function in harmony with natural landscapes, while also providing timber and non-timber resources for regional and global applications.
The key is finding an enduring balance, and as always our students provide me with hope for the future. So let’s keep our eyes on the sky and expand our knowledge of space—but let’s also tend the soil in our own backyard forests and fields, and keep investing in this planet’s fitness and future.
In 1923, Charles Lathrop Pack had the foresight to establish an essay competition so that students in the College of Forest Resources would “express themselves to the public and write about forestry in a way that affects or interests the public.” His original mandate continues today at SEFS—as does the unwavering value of good written communication—and we are pleased to announce the 2013 edition of the Charles Lathrop Pack Essay Competition!
Think you have the winning words? The prize for top essays is $500, and the field of potential topics is almost endless. That said, there are some important rules to follow, so here’s the rundown: Essay criteria: All submitted essays should address this year’s prompt: Is variable density thinning a better silvicultural approach for sustainable forestry in Western Washington than clearcut harvest practices? You must justify your answer from a political, ecological and economic point of view. You are expected to provide a technical perspective, addressing a diverse and educated audience that needs further knowledge of natural resource issues. All essays must be original to the competition, though course papers substantially restructured to meet these guidelines are acceptable; however, no group entries are permitted. References and quotes are acceptable only when sources are clearly indicated; direct quotes should be used sparingly. Entries should be typed, double-spaced (one side of paper only), and may not exceed 2,000 words. Students should include a cover page with student name and title of the essay.
Eligibility: The competition is open to juniors, seniors and graduate students enrolled in SEFS during Spring Quarter 2013 who have not yet received a graduate-level degree from any institution. Undergraduate and graduate essays will be judged in separate categories.
Judging: A Judging Committee will be selected to assess originality, organization, mastery of subject, objectivity, clarity, forcefulness of writing, literary merit and conciseness. The Committee will reserve the right to withhold the prize if no entry meets acceptable standards. The Committee may also award more than one prize for outstanding entries if funds permit. Winning papers will be posted on the Center for Sustainable Forestry at Pack Forest website, and might also be featured on the SEFS blog, “Offshoots,” and in the School’s e-newsletter, The Straight Grain. (Check out a sampling of previous winning papers to get a sense of the style and content).
Entries are due by April 29, 2013, and should be printed and delivered to Student and Academic Services in AND 116/130.
If you have any questions about the competition, or if you’d like to see if your essay idea sounds promising and appropriate, email Professor Greg Ettl. Otherwise, get typing!
This spring, the Institute of Forest Resources (IFR) awarded funding to six new research projects in Washington, ranging from the feasibility of a wolf economy, to restoring fire-prone forest ecosystems.
Led by Dean Emeritus Bruce Bare of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS), IFR’s mission is to explore research covering forestry and other emerging issues related to forest and environmental sciences. The institute’s primary scope involves issues affecting Washington State’s rural and urban forest ecosystems, and how to sustain the multiple products and services derived from these resources.
Housed within SEFS, and borrowing from the wealth of internal expertise and connections at affiliated institutions, IFR promotes a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective. None of its research is carried out in isolation or on strictly theoretical grounds. These projects rely on the natural laboratory of people interacting with their physical environment—wildlife and agriculture, climate change and forest management, forest policy and economic markets, watersheds and water quality. The goal is to deliver practical solutions and policies that promote a sustainable balance between ecological and economic interests.
Funding has been finalized for four of the six proposals, and is pending final approval from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture for the remaining two. The six projects for 2013-14 include:
1. “Defining Desired Future Conditions for Restoration of Fire-Prone Forest Ecosystems: Lessons from the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.” (Charles B. Halpern, Lauren S. Urgenson, Clare M. Ryan, Ernesto Alvarado and Jonathan D. Bakker).
Restoration of frequent- and mixed-fire regime forest ecosystems is a pressing natural resource issue in Washington State, as in much of the West. In 2009, the U.S. Forest Service established the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) to facilitate forest restoration at a landscape scale. The program engages stakeholders from diverse groups—with differing goals and perspectives—in the design and implementation of large-scale forest restoration projects. This project has two overarching goals: first, to understand how CFLRP collaboratives in the inland Northwest (and beyond) achieve consensus in defining desired future conditions; and second, to distill this understanding as a set of “best practices” that can assist forest managers and collaborative-group members in this process.
2. “Assessing the Impact of Trade Policies on the Competitiveness of Wood Exports from Washington State.” (Ivan Eastin and Indroneil Ganguly).
Recently, a large number of new laws, regulations, policies and programs have been adopted around the Pacific Rim that could significantly affect the specification, use and trade of wood products from Washington State. This study will implement a program of research and extension activities designed to assist small and medium-sized wood products companies and Native American tribal enterprises to understand and adapt to these changing market conditions.
3. “Finding Common Ground Toward the Resolution of a Forest Management Dispute.” (Stanley T. Asah and E. David Ford).
Management of the Olympic Experimental State Forest (OESF) is important to a range of interested parties. This project will implement a research program to better understand and inform the resolution of the dispute about how the OESF is currently managed, and to outline key areas of consensus and disagreement about how the forest should be managed in the future. In light of the Olympic Natural Resources Center’s role as a neutral forum for addressing management challenges, the aim of this study is to facilitate the management of the OESF in ways that are not only ecologically sound but are also culturally, politically and socio‐economically acceptable across the key stakeholder groups.
4. “Climate Change and Washington State Biofuels Industry: Impacts and Critical Technical Innovations.” (Renata Bura, Richard Gustafson, Susan Bolton, Josh Lawler and Luke Rogers.)
Hardwood plantations are being established in the Pacific Northwest to provide feedstock for the production of fuels and chemicals. However, water demand and water availability for the production of biofuels may be substantial, and water issues need to be investigated further before a commercial system is built out and formalized. The study will use an interdisciplinary approach to develop new technologies, and perform impact assessments for attaining sustainable biofuel production.
5. “Feasibility of a Wolf Economy for Washington.” (John Marzluff, Stanley Asah and Aaron Wirsing).
This project will engage stakeholders in the recovery of wolf numbers in Washington State to determine the feasibility, both social and economic, of developing a market that values a sustainable wolf population. Researchers will build on existing examples and citizen input to test two major components of a viable wolf economy: protecting rancher investments, and developing new markets that reward and compensate ranchers who coexist with wolves.
6. “Assessing the Status of Washington’s Hardwood Resource.” (B. Bruce Bare, John Perez-Garcia and Luke Rogers).
This study aims to calculate how much hardwood growing stock currently exists in Washington State; the age (or size) class structure and location of the inventory; the ownerships currently managing the growing stock; and the volume under riparian management regulations.
***
During a two-year period, total funding for the six projects is roughly $1.5 million, including federal funds provided by the McIntire-Stennis cooperative research program, and matching funds provided by project collaborators.
As these projects take shape, IFR will work to communicate research findings to the public through meetings, workshops, websites and social media—and in clear, accessible language that resonates widely. So stay tuned!
For more information about IFR and its research, contact Bruce Bare.
Clear blue skies greeted the research crew on a morning snowshoe hike to a wolf kill site in the Lamar Valley.
Before the crack of dawn this past Saturday morning, March 23, a caravan set off on the long, long drive to Gardiner, Mont., at the edge of Yellowstone National Park. On board were 15 students and three faculty members from the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS), all heading out to spend roughly a week of field study in the northern Rockies as part of a spring course, “ESRM 459: Wildlife Conservation in Northwest Ecosystems.”
Led by SEFS Professors John Marzluff, Monika Moskal and Aaron Wirsing, the group will be using the Northern Range of Yellowstone National Park, between Gardiner and Cooke City, as a staging area to explore patterns of corvid, and especially raven, distribution; elk anti-predator behavior (vigilance); and wolf predation. The class also addresses regional management issues, including wolves and bison leaving the park.
It’s a glorious time to be trekking through the Yellowstone backcountry. The group has special access to remote research areas, tourists are few and far between, scores of bison are out hoofing through the snow, and students occasionally catch glimpses of wolves, grizzlies and other wilderness gems.
Professor John Marzluff helps orient students during their first full day in the park.
Of course, it’s a working research visit, and students spend long days trudging through the park—often at the mercy of the elements, which at this time of year can be ornery, if not downright savage. Then, after they return to campus on March 30, they begin working on group projects based on data collected. They will present their findings to the public at the end of spring quarter.
But even in the worst weather conditions, when even your expedition thermals can feel threadbare and drafty, how could you say no to this kind of hands-on experience in the wilds of Yellowstone?
This dock, set adrift from Misawa, Japan, by the tsunami in March 2011, beached on a remote shore of the Olympic Peninsula this past December.
On Tuesday evening, March 19, the Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) invited members of the Forks, Wash., community to a program about the marine debris washing up on nearby coastal beaches.
Some of the debris is a result of the devastating tsunami in Japan two years ago in March 2011, and speakers at the event addressed various angles of the disaster and its ongoing effects. Nir Barnea, regional lead for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Marine Debris Program, provided an overview of the tsunami’s physical impacts and efforts to track and respond to tsunami debris as it is dispersed across the Pacific Ocean. Coastal biologist Steve Fradkin from Olympic National Park, along with resource protection specialist Liam Antrim from NOAA’s Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, then shared updates on the removal of a large dock that beached last December on a remote shore within the boundaries of both Olympic National Park and the sanctuary.
The dock—which measured 65’x20’x7.5’ and was kept afloat by 200 cubic yards of a Styrofoam-like material in its concrete holds—is currently being sawed up into manageable sections and removed by helicopter. It was one of three docks set adrift from Misawa, Japan, says Rainey McKenna, a public information officer with Olympic National Park.
Crews work to saw the dock into smaller sections, which are then removed from the beach by helicopter.
The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary is overseeing the removal project, and they are collaborating closely with Olympic National Park. A subcontractor, Undersea Company of Port Townsend, is handling the actual dismantling and removal of the dock.
Among those who attended the hour-long program were about 35 members of the Port Angeles and Forks communities, including Forks Mayor Bryon Monohon. In addition to learning more about the tsunami debris and removal efforts, attendees also got a chance to connect with the local work and research at ONRC.
Located on the Olympic Peninsula in Forks, ONRC is a research center with the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. The facility provides scientific information to address critical issues and solve problems concerning forestry and marine sciences in the region. It serves as a catalyst for interdisciplinary and collaborative work, bringing together expertise from forest resources and ocean and fishery sciences. By integrating research with education and outreach, it unites researchers, students, professionals and the public.
Xi Sigma Pi, the Forestry Honor Society founded at the University of Washington in 1908, is proud to announce the recipients of this year’s research grant funding. After long and hard deliberation, and the careful review of many highly competitive proposals, the following winners were selected:
