​Neil Chapman

Neil Chapman

Northern Arizona Program Restoration Manager, The Nature Conservancy

Biography

Neil Chapman is The Nature Conservancy’s Northern Arizona Program Restoration Manager and lives in Flagstaff, Arizona with his wife Jennifer and son Joseph. Neil grew up in South Hadley, Massachusetts, a small western-Mass town along the Connecticut River established in 1775. Heading west for college, Neil received a B.S. from the Colorado State University School of Forestry in Fort Collins, Colorado in 2001. Shortly after college, Neil’s conservation career began with The Nature Conservancy at the Nachusa Grasslands in northern Illinois where he supported the stewardship of tall grass prairie and oak savannah restoration projects. In 2006, Neil returned to the west and began managing ecological restoration projects throughout northern Arizona based out of TNC’s Hart Prairie Preserve. Neil’s current role involves forestry and fire management programs throughout northern Arizona’s forests and grasslands. Recent projects include developing and field testing technologies that transform forest restoration project planning and mechanical timber harvesting operations. The technology streamlines project layout and provides an important source of data for adaptive management as operational information on prescription implementation is now readily available to sale administrators.

Presentation Topic

Accelerating Forest Restoration in Northern Arizona using the Digital Restoration Guide

Presentation Description

The Nature Conservancy is working to accelerate the pace and scale of forest restoration within the 2.4 million acre Four Forest Restoration Initiative. Implementation bottlenecks include the low value of small-diameter wood and associated biomass and the tentative social acceptance of large-scale treatments. The Digital Restoration Guide, an integration of existing and emerging technologies, addresses these bottlenecks by improving wood harvester efficiency, increasing the amount of acreage prepared for treatments, and obtaining new field operations data to better inform adaptive management. http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/arizona/restoring-arizonas-forests.xml

Workshop Schedule

Registration Opens

10:00 AM

Light Lunch

11:00 AM

Key Note Speaker

12:00 PM

Panel: The Economics of Forest Restoration

Topics: Making Forest Restoration Economical, Contractor Logging Costs & Opportunities for Cost-savings, The Economics of Dry Forest Stewardship Projects, and Using the Land Fin Tool

Panel: From Inception to Implementation, Planning for Success

Topics: Planning at the Landscape Scale, Making Use of Good Neighbor Authority, Authorities to Maximize Restoration, and Packaging Federal Resources for All-lands Restoration

Panel: Cutting Edge Technologies for Sale Layout and Implementation (Part 1)

Topics: Virtual Boundaries and Discernable Boundaries, Integration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in daily forest operations: from cruising to regeneration survey, Using Avenza PDF Maps in Concert with Cut-To-Length Harvesting Systems, and Planning Ground-based Harvest Operations to Limit Soil Impacts

Reception and Featured Speaker

5:30 PM

Breakfast

7:00 AM

Featured Speaker

Panel: Forest Treatments for Riparian Health

Topics: Hydrology Concerns for Treatments in Riparian Areas, Riparian Thinning Using Cut-to-Length, and Riparian Thinning: An Example from the Deschutes National Forest

Panel: Managing Good Fire at the Right Place and Right Time (Part 1)

Topics: Managed Fire: A tool or a Hazard? An in-depth discussion with the Lakeview Forest Stewardship Group.

Panel: Managing Good Fire at the Right Place and Right Time (Part 2)

Topics: Prescribed Fire at Scale and Contracting Prescribed Fire

Panel: Bridges and Water Crossings: Challenges and Opportunities

Topics: Roads, Crossings and Culverts, Low-cost approaches to Low-Volume Roads and Water Crossings, Prioritizing Roads, Crossings & Culverts with NetMap.

Lunch: A View from All Sides: Perspectives on Implementation Efficiencies, Challenges, & Opportunities

Summary Statements from Forest Service Staff, Collaborative Member and Industry Representative discussed over Lunch

11:45 AM

Adjourn

Have a safe trip home!

1:00 PM

Breakfast

7:00 AM

Featured Speaker: Do Collaboratives Matter in Litigation?

with Susan Jane Brown

Panel: New Opportunities for Conventional Harvesting Systems and Biomass Utilization

Topics: Cut-to-Length vs Whole Tree Logging Systems, Biomass Utilization: Harvesting and Markets, and Managing Slash: Needs, Challenges, Opportunities

Panel: Steep Terrain Harvesting Systems

Topics: Skyline Logging: New Approaches to Traditional Systems, Steep Slope Logging, and Tethered Assist

Lunch

with optional practical application activity

12:30 PM

Facilitated Conversations on the morning’s topics

Continue the discussion: The key elements of making forest restoration work economically viable

Panel: A Grounded Approach: Soil Considerations for Harvesting

Topics: Soil Matters: Improving Forest Landscape Planning and Management for Diverse Objectives with Soils Information and Expertise, Soil Resources Management for Logging in Steep Slopes, Interaction of Steep Slope Equipment with Soil Resources

Panel: Cutting Edge Technologies for Sale Layout and Implementation (Part 2)

Topics: Tablet applications for Implementing Silvicultural Prescriptions, Forest Restoration in the Tablet & Smart Phone era: Marking and Realtime Monitoring using the ICO APP, and Non-contact tree measurement for forest harvesting machines

Panel: Designation Methods: Lessons Learned

Topics: Alternative Contracting Methods and Implementation Strategies for Commercial Harvest, DxP and DxD

Facilitated Conversation on Afternoon Topics

or optional practical application activity

Dinner on your own

Enjoy one of the many area dining options at your leisure.

6:00 PM
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