Introduction
Anna: Hi everyone I'm Anna Stockstad from University of Minnesota Extension.
Dave: And I’m Dave Nolle from the Minnesota logger education program.
Anna: We’ll be spending the next 11 episodes visiting with practitioners and subject matter experts about Minnesota's Forest management guidelines. Joining us today are Charlie Blinn and Dick Rosman. So guys you both played a part in developing the guidelines several years ago so let's say you ran to some ran into someone in the elevator and struck up a conversation about the conference your attending about the forest management guidelines how would you tell them what an FMG is?
Yeah great question Anna so what would I would do is tell him that many of the activities that we have for doing the woods cause some sort of an impact and those impacts can be both positive and negative and what we want to do is maintain retain those positive impacts while trying to mitigate those negative impacts so our forest management guidelines are really designed to help us maintain all those positive impacts while mitigating the negative impacts.
So I'm the new guy here and I've been to a few of the FMG trainings in person with with Charlie and there's like eight or 11 or 12 a whole laundry list of of topics in the FMGs you know soil Wetlands, Wildlife, historical, cultural, and I'm used to heading out to the woods going to families cabin and such and most of those items are all familiar to me and I get the timber harvesting is big here in Minnesota and part of having healthy Forest but you know really what's the Cliff's Notes something that to be able to explain this to somebody a landowner or someone or family member who is not going to come take our FMG training.
Dave you're right our guidelines are really designed to mitigate impacts to a variety of resources including as you and some of the ones that you included and in addition to soil and water quality, Wetlands, riparian areas, Wildlife, historic and cultural resources and visual quality and so it really designed to mitigate impacts to all those things and so what we did was realizing that there are a lot of things for people to look at, try to remember, we developed kind of those cliff notes and they're in a field guide that really focuses on impacts related or that are caused from timber harvesting and so they address most of those categories of areas that where impacts can occur but they don't include cultural resources or visual quality, so it's really that Cliff’s notes that are designed to help field practitioners implement these practices on the ground.
thanks Charlie that's it that's a good point about the pocket guide cliff notes version one of the one of the things I might add about the guidelines as they were established as a menu of practices rather than a mandate, you'll see that in the introductory language to the guidelines and what that what that means is that that all sites are unique all sites are a little bit different all operations are a little bit different, so we we designed a menu with practices that can accomplish our sustainability goal for those resources addressed in the guidelines. so you can select off that menu practices or options for the practice that best meets your site that will satisfy that the practice and protect those sustainability goals if we listed. An example might be wetland crossing if you have to cross the wetland. There's a variety of crossing options listed, now you don’t have to use them all you select the one that best fits your site that will protect that wetland.
yeah and Dick that's a great Point given that you look at the differences across Minnesota and you think of the southeast where topography can be steeper and much flatter in northern Minnesota we wouldn't want to require the same sort of parameters or guidelines on every site, we need to have a menu from which practitioners can select what's most appropriate for that site based on site conditions and land owner objectives.
Well thanks guys and so I think Dave has a handle on the pocket guide now and to be honest he's taking that eFMG training that most who are listening to this podcast should have taken and probably understand the pocket guide at this point but what about the full set of guidelines, that 600 page document how often do you Charlie as a University educator actually consult the pocket guide versus the full guidelines is that different for a Forester or a logger or maybe a landowner as well?
And so I I review them before the classes that I'm involved with instructing which can be here at the University or with loggers and Foresters around the state of Minnesota. much perhaps similar to when I took driver's ed a few years ago I learned that manual looked at it a lot learned what it was and then because I apply those things almost every day when I because I drive almost every day I apply what I learned on a frequent basis and so I don't go back to that driver's manual and look at the rules any more and so I would think that a field practitioner would probably look at the rules or the guidelines that full book a lot less than I might because I don't practice them every day because they have a lot of experience practicing them in the woods today.
Great so Charlie Dick we want to respect your time and the time of of our listeners here today thanks for joining us today will probably have you back as Anna mentioned we have 11 more episodes coming up here so we'll certainly have something for you to participate in. Dick how about you if you had to pick up your favorite chapter in the pocket guide what would it be?
I think I think my favorite chapter is one that I quite honestly think is rarely used and that's the rationale section which is that yellow tab section in the guidebook. This section of the guidelines is is designed to provide the background science and a rationale for the guidelines that were developed. So if someone was was interested in why a specific guideline is important to implement on a site they can go back to this section and they can read about the science behind the guidelines and hopefully understand why that's important to implement that specific guideline. For example if you're wondering why is it important to protect seasonal ponds you can read about the unique function that these seasonal ponds serve in the forest ecosystems and what actions might protect those functions during your operation.
Well thank you both for joining us today and for our listeners will be back in the next episode to talk about Timber sale planning until then stay tuned for updates about our Workshop related to leaf trees and riparian management Zone guidelines at the Cloquet Forestry Center this October 2023. be sure to invite you fellow Foresters loggers and other stakeholders to join Charlie Dick and many other subject matter experts when we dig more into the FMGs. Thank you all for listening.
