Projects
Tools for Engaging Landowners Effectively
The Sustaining Family Forests Initiative (SFFI) has developed a research and education program, Tools for Engaging Landowners Effectively (TELE), that enhances the ability of natural resource professionals to reach more family woodland owners with effective conservation and stewardship messages, services and programs. This is accomplished by combing data from the National Woodland Owner Survey with the principles of social marketing – namely understanding the attitudes, values and preferences of the landowners in order to tailor communication, services, and programs. Successfully implemented, this will exponentially increase the number of landowners participating in stewardship and conservation activities.
Understanding Connecticut Landowners
Connecticut’s forests, half of which are owned by families, face continual threats of further fragmentation from unplanned development. This project significantly enhanced understanding of Connecticut forest landowners’ attitudes, objectives, and stewardship behaviors, in order to implement much more effective programs for sustainable forest management and conservation across the Connecticut landscape. Data was synthesized and disseminated following the framework of the Sustaining Family Forests Initiative for providing the best possible information about forest landowners to natural resource professionals so that they more effectively engaged landowners in environmental stewardship behaviors.
Call Before You Cut
Call Before You Cut (CBYC) was a pilot project to test how to apply SFFI research to landowner outreach programs. The audience for this campaign was woodland owners in six states - West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri - who own between 10 and 1000 acres of woodland.