In this paper, we discuss what we learned about multiparty monitoring for collaborative, community-based forest restoration projects, after providing technical assistance and training to more than 50 New Mexico community groups between 2002 and 2007. These community groups were all recipients of Collaborative Forest Restoration Program (CFRP) cost-share grants. The grants require multi-stakeholder monitoring and assessment of project effectiveness in terms of ecological change and effects on management skills. Because all CFRP grantees are required to monitor their projects, this program provided a unique opportunity for assessing community-based, multiparty monitoring of forest restoration projects. Given four years experience providing monitoring assistance to CFRP grantees, we explore the following questions:What are the goals of multiparty monitoring? How does it work? What are reasonable expectations of multiparty monitoring? What are the best ways to help community groups achieve these expectations? Finally, how should a community prepare for the implementation of multiparty monitoring in a community-based forestry program?

Economic development in forested rural areas is a key component of ecological restoration activities in the frequent fire forests of the Intermountain West, and nowhere is economic improvement more sorely needed than on the regions numerous Native American reservations. In this ERI white paper, we analyze the potential of improving the economy of the Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah) through the sale of carbon credits for carbon sequestered in its Tribal forests.

Stewardship contracting is a recent innovation in federal land management designed to address land stewardship needs through collaboration with local communities. The White Mountain Stewardship Contract (WMSC), which is focused on restoring ponderosa pine forests in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests (ASNF) in east-central Arizona, is the nations largest stewardship contract to date, and the first to commit to the maximum duration of ten years. After two-and-a-half years of implementation, the WMSC is credited with helping to restore forest health, protect vulnerable communities, and revitalize local wood products businesses, and has received strong support from a broad spectrum of local stakeholders. These accomplishments are particularly impressive given the fact that less than a decade ago the White Mountains region was mired in a shut down of forest activities, characterized by social division over forest management issues, local mill closures, and an inability to implement most forest management efforts. This case study examines how community members, business owners, and agency employees were able to transition from community gridlock to broad-based support for the most ambitious forest stewardship plan in the National Forest System.

Collaborative approaches to natural resource management have become increasingly popular since the 1980s in the United States, to the point where the federal government now mandates them for some federal activities and federally funded projects. For example, through the Healthy Forests Restoration Act and appropriations for the National Fire Plan, Congress has directed that federal land management agencies should make the states and local governments full partners in collaborative resource management, and work closely with citizens and governments at all levels. (Public Law 108-148) In August 2004, President Bush released an Executive Order calling for cooperative conservation, with an emphasis on appropriate inclusion of local participation in federal decisionmaking, [including] collaborative activity among federal, state, local, and tribal governments, private for-profit and nonprofit institutions, other nongovernmental entities and individuals.

Paying for large-scale ecological restoration of dry forests on federally managed lands throughout the western United States is urgently needed, but also quite expensive. Most experts agree that federal dollars will not be enough to do the job. While one of the obvious ways to help pay for restoration of overstocked forests is from timber sale proceeds, there may be another option-the sale of carbon credits in the newly emerging carbon marketplace. In this white paper, we discuss the basic issues involved in carbon trading, especially as it applies to forests and forest restoration in the American West. While the current carbon market situation is unlikely to provide much economic advantage, emerging federal cap-and-trade legislation and continuing interest in S2greenS3 economics may soon support a market-based scenario where healthy, restored forests are valued for their prodigious ecosystem services.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.