Collaborating Across Professional Borders
By Bernie Hubbard
Fresh from college in the late 1960s, I joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) as a forester on Seney National Wildlife Refuge in
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. My main responsibilities were to inventory the forest—classifying it by
type, size, and potential for commercial harvest—and
to develop a forest management plan for the refuge.
Bernie Hubbard is
the immediate Past
President of the
Society of American
Foresters, the
Founder of Forestry
Solutions, LLC, and
a former Michigan
State Forester.
Credit: Lenore Hubbard
When I moved from FWS to a job at the Michigan
Department of Natural Resources (DNR), I retreated
into an office full of foresters. As I moved up through
the ranks over 35 years, I witnessed the emergence
of monthly meetings between the heads of all the department’s divisions, including wildlife and forestry.
Keeping informed about other groups’ priorities and
goals helped keep our own work running smoothly.
I worked out of the refuge’s tiny office, interacting
daily with a wildlife biologist, technicians, and a
recreation specialist. When it came time to draft a
management plan, the only way to accomplish the
habitat, harvest, and recreation goals of the refuge
was to collaborate with my colleagues. We needed
to find ways to provide timber commodities to help
support the local economy while ensuring that harvest practices were sustainable and maintained good
habitat for wildlife.
These cross-division relationships came in handy
about eight years ago, when the Michigan DNR
began the process to certify its state forests under
Forest Stewardship Council and Sustainable Forestry
Initiative standards. Every manager was involved to
document that we were in step with sustainable and
socially responsible forest management practices.
This early lesson—that natural resource professionals must work together to maintain healthy, vibrant
ecosystems—has stuck with me through a lengthy
career in forestry and remains with me today as a
forest management consultant. A single forest may
have many uses, at once providing wildlife habitat, a
source of wood products, a carbon sink, and a place
for humans to find serenity and spiritual renewal.
Managing for each of these values in isolation is
unrealistic and counterproductive. The need for collaboration among professionals is particularly acute
today, given the strains on budgets for resource
management. For that reason alone, pooling our
collective knowledge makes practical sense.
There were bumps in the process. The timber industry claimed they wouldn’t be able to keep their mills
running. The state legislature was close to imposing
decrees stating how much timber we could harvest.
Ultimately, though, we succeeded: Today all of
Michigan’s state forests are dual-certified, thanks
to the collective work of many.
It makes sense from the standpoint of achievements as well. I have seen foresters and wildlife
biologists spend hours arguing over how to manage a 20-acre parcel of land because neither side
would budge from their goal of maximizing either
forest product commodities or wildlife populations.
We cannot afford to manage our natural resources
with this type of confrontational attitude, especially
when real progress can be made with respect and
compromise. Without these, I fear someone else
may end up defining our jobs for us, be they politicians or environmentalists. As scientifically trained
professionals, we must lead the management of
natural resources.
Breaking Boundaries
Outside the office, we need to collaborate with resource managers across the spectrum of employers,
including agencies, industries, conservation groups,
and academic institutions. All of us are churning
out work that sometimes fails to reach managers on
the ground who need it most. As part of the leadership of the Society of American Foresters, I’ve taken
steps to bridge this gap, working with the National
Association of State Foresters to craft a set of guidelines for sustainable forest management that could
be used across the United States. The end result will
include input from other natural resource organizations and reflect the priorities and objectives of a
range of stakeholders.
We have a big job to do. Individuals involved in wildlife
conservation, timber harvest, watershed management,
or outdoor recreation may each have a different set of
goals in their work. But within those sets, many objectives likely overlap. I urge you all to break through
your disciplinary boundaries to achieve our shared
goals, to the benefit of all natural resources.
