The June 7 NCSAF luncheon began with remembrances of NCSAF member Arthur V. Smyth who died May 19 at his home in Littleton, NH, where he spent his final days with family. NCSAF Past Chair John Witherspoon gave an account of Art’s life and contributions to NCSAF and national SAF, of which he was President in 1990.

Art studied forestry at the University of Michigan, where he graduated from the School of Forestry and Conservation in 1941. He served in World War II in the Philippines, New Guinea, and Japan with the 650 th Topographic Battalion, which made maps for all of the major invasions in the Western Pacific.

Art joined Weyerhaeuser as a field forester following the war, working his way up with ever-more responsible assignments in management and procurement to his final position as the corporation’s first Vice President for Governmental Affairs based in Washington DC. He joined SAF’s Washington D.C. Section, which later became NCSAF. Art served as Washington Section Chair from 1977 - 1979 and was elected Fellow in 1983. Following his retirement, Art remained active in NCSAF, volunteering as historian. He continued his professional work as an associate of Columbia Consulting Group.

SAF President John McMahon delivered the formal program at the June luncheon. John was in town for the SAF council meeting, and was kind enough to travel early in order to address interested NCSAF members. He began with a personal account of his close relationship with Art Smyth, whom he regarded as mentor. They had worked together on forest policy for Weyerhaeuser: John on the West Coast as Vice President of Timberlands, External, and Regulatory Affairs, and Art in DC. John retired from the company in 2001.

John reported that the national SAF is in better financial shape than it has been in years, with net revenue in 2006 of $488,026. This surplus continues a trend of strong net revenue over the past several years under the leadership of Executive Vice-President Michael Goergen.

SAF has played a visible and strong role representing the forestry profession with national and state policy makers. Comments have been submitted on all major Administration initiatives involving forestry. SAF has supported priority funding for sustainable forestry in the FY 2008 appropriations bills by highlighting:

• Forest health,
• Wildfire suppression funding impacts,
• Research including Forest Inventory & Assessment,
• The need for funding to improve understanding the effects on forests of global climate change and opportunities for forest-based carbon sequestration,
• Importance of support for forest management on Federal, state, and private lands, and
• State & private forestry, and
• Forestry extension.

The previous Congress supported the passage of the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, which addressed science-based response to extreme events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires. In spite of approval by a strong bipartisan majority in the House, the bill died in the Senate and hasn’t yet been introduced in the 110 th Congress.

Probably the most important legislation affecting forestry in the 110 th Congress will be the 2007 Farm Bill. SAF has provided leadership with the Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition of more than 30 conservation organizations (http://www.safnet.org/policyandpress/documents/Forests_In_Farm_Bill_final_SAF.pdf). Three of the bill’s titles contain provisions especially relevant to forestry: forestry, conservation, and energy.

SAF’s ability to influence forest policy has been supported by an active engagement of the Committee on Forest Policy, which John chaired for several years prior to his election in 2005 as SAF Vice President. There are about 20 national position statements a range of nationally significant issues, from Biodiversity to Urban Forestry (http://www.safnet.org/policyandpress/positionstatements.cfm). Recent policy committee focus has been on herbicides, clearcutting on Federal lands, forest regulation on private lands, urban & community forestry, and forest biotechnology.

John provided an update on the joint SAF/National Association of State Foresters Task Force on Sustainable Forest Policy, which begun last year under the leadership of SAF’s 2006 President Marvin Brown. Through the more than 100-year history of professional forestry in the United States, many laws and regulations affecting forestry have come into existence at the Federal and state level. Many of these establish inconsistent policies. The Sustainable Forest Policy Task Force is attempting to engage interested parties on a national basis to seek consensus on more consistent forest policies across the Nation and their enactment and implementation.

Some other recent national SAF developments include:

• An initiative with external funding in which SAF will train Native American tribes to undertake forest restoration projects that take advantage of the tribes’ traditional close relationship with ecosystems and support business models that improve tribal livelihoods;
• A report on the State of America’s Forests, also undertaken with outside funding (http://www.safnet.org/aboutforestry/index.cfm);
• A group Certified Forest Management System™ (CMFS) that is compatible with the Forest Stewardship Council and Sustainable Forestry Initiative® standards under which properties of individual forest owners would not need to be certified but would receive certification because their management plans had been prepared by a CMFS-accredited forester, forest management organization, industry procurement forester, or forestry consulting firm, with the property owner agreeing to make the property subject to external audit; and
• An initiative funded by the U.S. Forest Service to promote evidence-based natural resources management, following decision-making principles of the medical profession, in which scientific knowledge developed by research is complemented by a practitioner’s professional experience.

Prior to taking questions from participants, John related that SAF Council has decided to address the fundamental questions raised in the preamble to the 2005 Volunteer Organization Structure Task Force Report about what sort of organization SAF members want to belong to.

The national office at Wild Acres in Bethesda is developing a nationwide survey to be directed at SAF members to ask members what they’re looking for in their professional organization at the national and local level. NCSAF leadership has been discussing this very same issue and has been discussing a survey of our membership. Perhaps we can partner with the national office to engage our members one-on-one to develop some in-depth and personal feedback. Stay tuned.