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"People and the Land" photo project up and running
NNFP members will soon have their stories highlighted as part of People and the Land, NNFP’s just-launched project meant to inspire support for community-based forestry and rural forested communities. Two photojournalism Fellows from Ohio University’s world-renowned Scripps School of Communications recently hit the road to work with NNFP members in the Upper Midwest and New England, with other visits coming up in the South and Appalachia over the next ten weeks.
Visit the project blog to see images and updates from the Fellows.
http://www.peopleandland.blogspot.com
Monday, June 9, 2008
NNFP on Local NPR Radio
As home to a national sustainable forest group, Athens is at the center of a
movement that combines jobs and the environment.
Listen to the story...
Small sustainable wood-workers get a leg up.
In August, NNFP will receive a grant from the Wood Education Resource Center to undertake a training and support program for small sustainable wood businesses, helping them to increase their visibility and effectiveness of their web sites.
This grant, entitled “Extending the Reach of Small Wood-Products Firms Through Web-Marketing Capacity Building and Portal Development” will allow NNFP to:
- Host a series of on-line trainings giving wood products businesses the tools to increase their web sites’ traffic and effectiveness
- Facilitate collaboration between sustainable wood products businesses- including link exchanges, joint promotion, etc.
- Help two local Woodnets, member of NNFP, increase their web marketing effectiveness
- Host a regional meeting in New England on web marketing ,and sessions at NNFP’s national meeting in the Ozarks
- Market a national web portal that will allow small sustainable businesses to generate increased traffic from the highly visible portal
While the grant is for an 18 month period beginning in August, NNFP is already starting on the project and interested in hearing from small sustainable wood, or NTFP, businesses interested in participating. Contact colin@nnfp.us if interested.
For more information, visit http://www.na.fs.fed.us.werc/
Call for Partners:
“Telling the Stories of People and the Land”
Photo Fellowship
NNFP is coordinating a pilot initiative to help local communities, non-profits, and sustainable forestry businesses develop the tools to more effectively communicate their stories. We’re seeking community partners with a good idea or story to tell, and an interest and willingness to host a professional photographer.
This “Telling the Stories of People and the Land” pilot will involve the services of a graduate student from the School of Visual Communications at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio – one of the top photojournalism programs in the world. This “Photo Fellowship” will be a summer-long position for a talented graduate student with professional photojournalism skills.
NNFP and our partner, the Center for Rural Strategies, will supervise a student from the Scripps School in conducting field visits to tell the stories of Rural America, particularly People, Communities, Forests, and Water.
To learn more, download the Call for Community Partners
NNFP and IFCAE partnered to help harvesters give input into new Non-Timber Forest Products rules.
Information, including background, summary and analysis of the new rule, and a copy of the October 22, 2007 Federal Registry announcement can be found on the NTFP initiative documents page
Also, information about writing an effective letter of comment for this, or for whatever federal rule you can go to the policy initiative documents page POLICY Resources
This effort was not in NNFP's original budget but was made possible by membership dues and donations. If you think this is important work, please consider a donation to support it. Thank you!!
NNFP in the News
From an article in the Ohio University Outlook:
Chronicling people and the land
Students document conservation, sustainability
July 21, 2008
Four graduate students in the School of Visual Communication's photojournalism program are documenting stories of rural America this summer to help inspire support for conservation and sustainable forestry activities.
The Athens-based National Network of Forest Practitioners and the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Ky., awarded the fellowships to Jim Korpi, Peter Hoffman, Michael DiBari and Sherry DiBari.
read the article
From an article regarding NNFP's recent grant from the USFS Wood Education and Resource Center, in the Athens Messenger:
A national sustainable timber resource group based in Athens has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service.
The National Network of Forest Practitioners, which has its headquarters in Athens, will use the money to train small wood businesses on Web marketing and for the development of a portal site, which is a conglomeration of smaller Web sites that seeks to increase traffic to member sites.
The National Network of Forest Practitioners is an alliance of rural people throughout the country working to use forests sustainably to create jobs and commerce in their regions. (read the article)
From an article about Family Forestry in the New York Times:
"In 2002, when Carolyn Vassar Pickett’s mother died, she seriously considered selling the family land in Marengo County, AL. But a childhood friend encouraged her to contact the National Network of Forest Practitioners..." read the article
From "From the Back Forty," a blog by the Publisher of the Athens Messenger, the local newspaper in NNFP's new hometown:
"The National Network of Forest Practitioners moved its headquarters to Athens recently and forest management has been getting a lot of ink. Their message of economic development combined with preserving the environment should be welcome in our area..." read the blog
From an article about NNFP's move the southeastern Ohio in the Athens Messenger:
"In pursuing its mission of sustainable forests, part of its job is to encourage partnerships between rural community landowners and state forestry agencies, explained Sandra D. Jones, a board member from South Carolina who works primarily with African-American land owners in her area and serves as an advisor for the Center for Minority Land and Community Security." read the article
