New Global Forest Information Center
Contacts:
Dominick A. DellaSala, Ph.D., Chief Scientist & President, Geos Institute, 541-482-4459 x302
James Strittholt, Ph.D., President & Executive Director, Conservation Biology Institute, 541-757-0687 x 1
Ashland, OR – Scientists from the Geos Institute, Ashland and Conservation Biology Institute, Corvallis are building a first of its kind global forest-tracking center designed to monitor and call attention to the world’s alarming deforestation footprint. The Global Forest Information Center will be housed in a state-of-the art and Internet-based conservation data-sharing system developed by the Conservation Biology Institute (CBI) that was publicly launched in 2010. Known as Data Basin (databasin.org), the system already contains over 8,000 conservation spatial datasets for environmental monitoring.
The Global Forest Information Center will be added to Data Basin by initially focusing on temperate rainforests of the world and boreal forests of northern latitudes with plans to branch out globally within three years.
According to co-founder and project director, Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist and President of Geos Institute, “The main purpose of the Global Forest Information Center is to tap into the information revolution to send out alarm bells about the world’s rapidly dwindling intact forests while there is still time to protect these irreplaceable gems. This is a natural progression from the work we did last year to document the global importance of the world’s most threatened rainforests.”
Over half of the world’s forests are already gone and in the last decade global deforestation rates have averaged 50,000 square-miles each year, the equivalent of nearly half the state of Oregon. Only in the last few decades have scientists begun to seriously and broadly document the diversity of life and the myriad of life-giving ecosystem benefits we get from forests worldwide. The Global Forest Information Center will tap
into thousands of scientific assessments and make use of state-of-the art satellite imagery to track humanity’s expanding global deforestation footprint and will begin preparing “State-of-the Nation Forest Reports” that monitor the “Vital Signs” of forests, including their ability to continue providing freshwater, air purification, and wildlife habitat in a changing climate.
According to co-founder James Strittholt, “The Global Forest Information Center is a natural fit for us and a chance to blend forest tracking systems with internet services we built through Data Basin. It is our intent to team with scientists, agencies, land managers, and anyone else having an interest in tracking land-use changes and providing shared solutions to the world’s growing environmental problems.”
Partnering with conservation groups around the world, the Global Forest Information Center is scheduled to-be-launched to the public in the fall of 2012 using a seed grant already received from a private foundation. The seed grant will allow the Center to start building datasets for the Pacific Northwest and Alaska right away.
According to DellaSala, “we chose the Pacific Northwest and Alaska rainforests because these forests play a pivotal role in stabilizing the global climate, provide freshwater for salmon and people, contain some of the last and most carbon-dense old-growth forests in the temperate zone, and are threatened by proposed increases in logging.” The founding organizations intend to raise $1 million to go global within 3 years and will make the system available to decision makers, land managers, and the general public beginning in late fall.
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Robert Macnee, Ph.D. is Deputy Director of Resilience Services at Climate Resilience Consulting, where he helps governments, institutions, and communities reduce climate risk in equitable and practical ways. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Management focused on climate change impacts on health and communities, and brings over a decade of experience spanning economic development, resilience planning, and implementation.
Samantha Medlock is President of Climate Risk Advisors, helping communities and organizations advance equity, sustainability, and resilience. Her career began chasing floods as a local official in Texas Flash Flood Alley—a hands-on experience that still shapes her approach to climate and disaster risk management.
Jim is a multilingual world traveler. Based in Bavaria during the 1970s, Jim spent most of this period in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, where he founded and operated a charitable medical clinic serving Tibetan Refugees. He settled in Oregon in 1983 on a forested ranch in the Umpqua National Forest.
Dr. Micah Hahn is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage. She received her joint PhD in Epidemiology / Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MPH in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally-relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. Dr. Hahn is also on the Management Team of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center.
Michael is a former Founding Principal of Resilient Cities Catalyst, a global non-profit helping cities and their partners tackle their toughest challenges. He is currently the Executive Director of Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami.
Dr. Quintus Jett is a consultant, educator, and strategist for public causes. He has a doctorate in Organizations & Management from Stanford University, and a two-decade faculty career which spans schools, departments, and programs of business, engineering, liberal studies, divinity, and public and nonprofit management. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Dr. Jett launched a volunteer project in New Orleans, which enlisted residents, students from over a dozen colleges and universities, and hundreds of others to field map the city’s Gentilly district, Lower Ninth Ward, and New Orleans East. Dr. Jett is an innovator in higher education, bridging the divide between academic research and the other priorities of the modern university, including student access and diversity, community engagement, and providing foundations for life-long learning in today’s rapidly changing world.
Scott is Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He has written about 100 publications in the peer-reviewed climate literature, is a former editor of the Journal of Climate, and served for five years as founding Science Chair of the North American Carbon Program.
Linda has many years of experience in disaster preparedness and resilience. She has been an elected official on the Linn County Iowa Board of Supervisors, Chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments, the statewide Mental Health Developmental Disability and the Linn County Board of Health. Langston is a former president of the National Association of Counties (2013-2014).
Ken works with families and organizations as a mediator, organizational consultant, trainer and facilitator. Along with his passion for helping people prepare for and reduce climate change, Ken also volunteers as a mediator through Mediation Works and is passionate about supporting youth through mentoring with Boys to Men of Southern Oregon.
Matthew is a retired high school teacher who was once honored as Oregon High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year. Before his teaching career he was in the restaurant business in Portland. He is also a lawyer who has been a member of the Oregon State Bar Association since 1980.
Andrea is the Resilience Policy Advisor for the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency. She works across state agencies and with local governments to increase the state’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.