COS 262-5 - Overcoming workforce constraints in California forest management

Abstract: The state of California has set a target of treating one million acres of forest each year with mechanical thinning and prescribed burning to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk. Large-scale, intensive forest management for ecological reasons represents a departure from practices of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, during which periodic logging coupled with fire suppression and hands-off vegetation management led to increasing tree density and fuel loads. In addition to wildfire mitigation, more intensive forest management promises new jobs and economic opportunities in rural California and a return to historic Native American stewardship practices such as prescribed fire. In the aftermath of recent catastrophic wildfires, forest thinning and prescribed burning have the support of major environmental organizations as well as the public in California, and state agencies are investing heavily in these activities. Here we describe workforce challenges to implementing forest management activities at scale and coordinated efforts to overcome those challenges.

Implementation of vegetation management practices consistent with ecological and societal goals requires bridging scientific understanding with the institutions and people that carry out that work. The unprecedented alignment of stakeholders – including a broad spectrum of scientists focused on ecology, economics, and traditional landscape practices – to the idea that forests with historically frequent fires should be more actively managed using thinning, burning, or often both, provides a generational opportunity for action; however, efforts to scale up these activities have been hindered by lack of skilled workers in the range of professions that support and sustain them. Many factors contribute to the difficulty in rapidly mobilizing forestry and fire workforce: low awareness of and interest in jobs in forestry and fire; high rates of retirements, burnout, and other job turnover; low pay relative to other opportunities; the prevalence of seasonal work; lack of housing in the communities where training programs and forestry/fire jobs are located; lack of capacity in popular training programs; lack of infrastructure in affected regions to support all the necessary components of forestry/fire work; trucking and logistic limitations; and loss of potential workers in the “pipeline” that includes education/training and handoff to industry employment. Together, these factors present daunting challenges to implementing and scaling active forest management. Statewide coordinating efforts to address these challenges are being built by state agencies; educational, economic development, and conservation non-profits; educational institutions and tribal partnerships. We describe these activities and their prospects.