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Forest Leadership Program Teaches Vital Lessons
By
Carol L. Spence
 JABEZ,
Ky., (June 13, 2007) – Take some soil and water testing, insect
collecting, tree identification and measuring, mix it all
together in some teenaged fertile minds and let it percolate for
awhile. Ideally the concoction will yield savvy and
conservation-conscious business and community leaders of
tomorrow.
That is the goal of the annual Kentucky Forest Leadership
Program sponsored by the University of Kentucky Department of
Forestry and the Kentucky Division of Conservation. For five
days in June, 17 high school students from across the state, as
well as Texas and Ohio, gathered at the Kentucky Leadership
Center in Jabez to study woodland and natural resource
management. It’s an intensive week filled from early morning
until late evening with lessons, research and good-natured
competitions teaching campers to see the forest through the
trees.
Doug McLaren, UK College of Agriculture extension forestry
specialist, said the goal of the program is not necessarily to
create future forestry professionals.
“Our objective is for them to better understand the full impact
of forestry in the state of Kentucky and how that resource
affects all aspects – the economy, the environment,” he said.
“What we’re hoping is that they go back into their communities
and whenever an issue comes up dealing with forestry or any
aspect of natural resources, they can comment and make positive
feedback based upon knowledge that they learned here, rather
than hearsay.”
 With
47 percent of Kentucky covered in forest and 78 percent of the
state’s timberland owned by about 423,000 private individuals,
woodland management is an important aspect of the state’s
economic health. In fact, though people may associate Kentucky
more with tobacco, the fact is Kentucky’s forest industries add
$6.4 billion a year to the state’s economy.
“There are over 5,000 products that have been identified that
are made or derived from trees,” McLaren said. “One of the
activities we did (with the teens) was we recognized very
quickly that a majority of the products we use on a daily basis
are derived from a tree. Some of the plastics are derived
chemically from trees, shoe polish, tanning oils, cosmetics.
Some of the parts of medicines are derived from parts of trees.”
The teens learned land management decisions can have
far-reaching effects on them no matter where they live. Amanda
Abnee Gumbert, UK agricultural programs water quality liaison
and one of the week’s coordinators, said it takes small steps to
get to the bigger truth. For that reason, instructors at the
camp break the larger topic of forestry down into different
components such as soil properties, topography, insects and
water quality.
“What we want them to know is how land management decisions can
impact water. That’s the goal of the water testing they do,”
Gumbert explained. “They have to know the fundamentals of water
quality before they can get going with making that overall
connection. It’s the same thing in society. We have a disconnect
with that. We take for granted that we turn the tap on, and the
water is clean and we can drink it and it’s healthy. And we
don’t have a connection between a wetland, a lake, a pond and
our tap, even though it’s the same water.”
As Gumbert pointed out, “everything we do on the land eventually
is going to get to the water.” For that reason, she said,
everyone feels the impact of land management decisions.
 The
program is divided into two sections, forestry and entomology.
Entomology students spend half their time collecting and
identifying insects found in the forest. They also study the
overall forest to determine the impact the insects are having -
good or bad.
“We ran into Southern pine beetle damage, which is a negative
impact,” said Blake Newton, UK youth and 4-H entomology
specialist, who oversees the entomology thread. “We also talked
about the positive impact of that (beetle), because it creates
lots of fallen timber for other creatures to use. And we talked
about the impact of insects like the termites that do positive
things for the forest.”
The entomology thread differs from other entomology courses in
that it focuses specifically on forest insects, rather than
other aspects of agriculture.
“We want the entomologists to learn what their role would be
when interacting with the forestry profession,” Newton said.
The three students enrolled in the section discussed their
collections of cockroaches, moths and ants. They said one of the
highlights of the day was finding a dead turtle filled with
carrion beetles, something people don’t always run into on their
hometown streets of Lexington or Lampasas, Texas or West
Chester, Ohio.
In the forestry section, the other 14 students divided into
three teams and spent the morning taking inventory of a tree
stand. Led by a Kentucky Division of Forestry forester, each
team took note of the tree species found within a 74-foot
diameter circle and the diameter of each tree, as well as the
number of logs it can make. They also inventoried the
undergrowth and discussed the kind of management the tree stand
required. Jock Van Housten-Gurnee, of Mt. Sterling, discovered
that answers lie in the details.
“It’s amazing what I’ve learned here,” he said, “how a very
slight slope – half an inch to an inch – can change what trees
grow there.”
D.J. Pressley, too, has learned a lot of “amazing” details in
the two years she has attended the forestry leadership program.
While many of the teens come from families with some experience
in woodlands, D.J. lives in Louisville proper. Her interest in
the environment spurred her to enroll in the entomology section
of the program in 2006 and to return for the forestry section
this year. The Presentation Academy senior plans to major in
forestry at UK and continue for a law degree. She is interested
in practicing environmental law.
“If I do forestry, it will help me understand what’s going on
with the environment, so I can better explain in court why it’s
not healthy for our environment for people to do what they do,”
she said.
At the end of the week, the campers are required to develop a
land management plan for a 65-acre woodland lot, using all the
pieces of information they’ve gleaned over the week. If it seems
as if it’s a lot to take in during five days, the teens rise to
the occasion and benefit from the total experience. McLaren saw
tremendous growth in them throughout the week.
“They’re learning all of this wealth of information in a short
period of time,” he said. “They’re also learning how to
integrate it. They’re also learning how to self-manage
themselves as well as their crew, because somebody has to step
up at some time or another and show some type of leadership.”
It’s that leadership that McLaren and the other instructors in
the program are hoping will ensure Kentucky’s woodlands have a
healthy future. |
Contact: Doug McLaren, 859-257-2703
Amanda Gumbert, 859-257-6094
Blake Newton, 859-257-7453
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The UK College
of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
the commonwealth with teaching, research and extension
to enhance the lives of Kentuckians. |
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