Treesearch

The challenge for management is to ensure that the value and impact of people's outputs are greater than the cost of their inputs. Some measurements can include finances, growth, and employee satisfaction surveys. The role of a manager is sometimes that of an an expert and other times as a facilitator/ coach. A manager helps align organizational goals with an employee's individual aspirations. A balance in leadership should be achieved between topdown direction and participative management.

The idea for this workshop began in 1996 when the folks in Quebec, faced with some unappealing fiscal realities that promised to devastate their provincial forest research capacity, held a meeting that convened representatives from research organizations around the world to share their experiences under similar circumstances. The meeting gathered senior research executives from England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and Sweden. The experiences and the messages were surprisingly similar and confirmed a disconcerting fact: that times are changing for R&D in forestry and...

Benchmarking is a continuous, systematic process for evaluating the products, services, and work processes of organizations in an effort to identifY best practices for possible adoption in support of the objectives of enhanced activity service delivery and organizational effectiveness.

It is a pleasure to be in Quebec City to learn about this very important topic of managing research. We have an interesting panel to share ideas about managing science. They will talk about: Research Priorities; Goals and Objectives; Managing Human Resources; Evaluating Research.

The increased demand for native seed has surpassed our ability to provide high quality range-collected seed. This paper discusses some of the hazards and common mistakes associated with the collection of wildland native seed. Among the common difficulties in collecting native seed are: (1) native species do not produce seed often in the arid West; (2) there is a scarcity of large homogeneous accessible stands of native plants; (3) a widespread occurrence of noxious weeds lowers the percent of seed purity; and (4) fire has reduced the availability of native shrubs. Environmental factors...

Because of increasing public interest in native plants, regional groups have been cooperating to develop native species. The Federal Native Plants Initiative was formed in 1994 to coordinate and encourage the development and use of native plants. The program they developed includes public involvement, organizational structure, technical work groups, implementation plans, and followup. The implementation plan addresses native seed development by private industry, grower contracts, and agency cooperation. Public and private agencies can work together during the planning stages and provide...

Rangeland revegetation in the Western United States historically was applied at a large scale for soil conservation and forage production purposes. Principles of revegetation that have developed over years of research include matching site potential and plant materials adaption, use of appropriate seedbed preparation and sowing techniques, and development of large supplies of seed of adapted plants. Although many of these large-scale projects were extremely successful in terms of their original objectives, they often lacked native plant diversity. Increased use of native species for...

Native plant species are valuable resources for revegetation of disturbed ecosystems. The success of these plantings is dependent on the native species selected, quality of seed used, condition of the soil, environmental conditions before and after planting, planting equipment used, time of planting, and other factors. Most native species contain dormant seed. Dormancy in domesticated and wild species can make it difficult to establish stands; however, in wild species seed dormancy is one method of perpetuating the species. Temperature, moisture, and light requirements for germination of...

We recommend in this paper that land managers adopt a policy of mandatory use of native plant species for revegetation and restoration of severe disturbances on wildlands throughout the Interior West. A review of the relative advantages and disadvantages of using introduced and native species suggests that selection criteria based on ecological adaptability and suitability are more consistent with the objectives of ecosystem management than are criteria based on cost, availability, familiarity, or other nonecological considerations. We suggest that land managers initiate a policy requiring...

The National Park Service is taking the "Restoration" approach to reestablishing native plant communities by salvaging topsoil and by seeding and planting native indigenous plant materials. In this way, they are making every effort to protect the genetic integrity of the often unique native plant resource. Since 1985, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks have been working with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Plant Materials Center in Bridger, MT, to identify native plant species from which seed can be readily collected, propagated on a large scale, and successfully...