A Conversation with SAF’s President, Fred Cubbage 

By Steve Wilent, Editor, The Forestry Source
[excerpted from The Forestry Source; January, 2017]

On January 1, Fred Cubbage begins his one-year term as president of the Society of American Foresters; he served as vice-president for 2016. Cubbage, a registered forester in North Carolina, is a professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University. He holds a PhD in forest economics (1981) and a master’s degree in forest policy (1978) from the University of Minnesota, and a bachelor’s degree in forestry from Iowa State University (1974). He joined SAF in 1974. I recently spoke with Cubbage about what he sees ahead for forestry and SAF. 

What do you see as the main challenge for the forestry community today? 

The big-picture issues are natural-resources scarcity and retaining and managing forests as forests—protection from development and conversion to other uses. And protecting forests from fires, insects, diseases, and so on. We have to consider all of these factors to have forests be viable and maintained either as working forests or protected forests, but in any case maintained in a healthy condition. There are such huge pressures on our natural resources— development, agriculture, population— and against these pressures, forests often have the lowest value in market terms. It’s hard to protect those forests from development, even though they provide a large number of environmental services, if we’re not somehow able to capitalize on their nonmarket values. The key for the forestry profession is recognizing and capitalizing on these issues to point out the importance and relevance of our profession. If we don’t maintain the ecosystem services that provide for people’s well-being and prosperity today, we’ll sacrifice both long-term quality of life and the environment.

So we need to reach out to policymakers and the public?

The forestry profession needs to recognize the continuing pressures on forests, forest retention, and forest management, and focus on the management actions we can take. What levers can we use? How can we make markets work better? How can we make more money growing timber; how can we do more with pine straw, with agroforestry? How can we do more with policy interventions? The Farm Bill conservation programs are the biggest of those interventions, and there also are some state programs that focus on timber. How can we work more effectively with the environmental NGOs—The Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and other groups? These groups are bridging the middle ground between natural lands and working forests by helping them earn adequate returns to help keep these forests as forests, though not necessarily maximizing the net present value of those lands. 

SAF and the profession as a whole are doing quite well at this in general, but we’re still a small group facing a large number of pressures and forces that are diminishing our forests and their management. 

Foresters have a very positive message, that we can manage forests sustainably for just about any owner’s objectives. How can we better convey that message? How can we change minds and affect policies?

I think we have to continue to focus on the values of trees and forests, and we have to broaden the scope of our communications about the array of benefits and services that come from trees and forests, compared to other land uses, through timber management, urban forestry, managing the wildland-urban interface, wildland fire management. We’ve done this pretty well, but I’m not sure that we’ve yet realized our full potential in reaching out. We have to work with state and federal governments and organizations to promote and advocate for market and nonmarket forest values, because there are so many people who advocate for different uses. If we’re not present at the table, scarce budgets will be allocated to other purposes. 

And I certainly think that we need to advocate more for SAF and the forestry profession with private employers, and tell them just how important SAF’s information, education, and advocacy have been in promoting the wise use of forests.

How is SAF doing at this point in time? What are the challenges that we must address?

My heroes of administration and management are President Theodore Roosevelt, an activist and even interventionist who promoted the merits of forestry, but also small business and landowners, and President Calvin Coolidge, who was known for his embrace of the idea that he who governs best governs least. I don’t want to come into SAF as president and start making vast changes and reforms and start doing things differently. I think SAF is doing quite a good job. It has a great portfolio [of disciplines and areas of expertise]. It’s relevant. It’s being asked for information and perspectives about important forestry questions. That said, our challenge is to have the capital, both financial and human, to address these questions well and meaningfully, both in having better science to answer them and in having the ability to communicate, to get the word out. But I think we’re on a pretty good strategic track. 

In my view, one challenge for SAF is attracting young people to the profession and to our organization. It was gratifying to see so many students and young foresters at the convention in November in Madison, Wisconsin. How can we reach out to more of these young people? 

There’s no silver bullet for this, but working with students is certainly crucial. My colleagues at NC State are incredibly dedicated in working with students to foster their interest in the forestry program and in SAF. So finding the key leaders at both the four-year and graduate universities and colleges, as well as in the technical schools and colleges, and keeping them engaged with SAF are very important. All in all, I think we’ve done pretty well at getting students engaged with SAF. The large number of enthusiastic students at the Quiz Bowl at the national convention is a great example. 

The challenge, then, is to keep them engaged with SAF after they graduate. I don’t have all the answers, but I think we need to get the chapters and the state societies to embrace students after they graduate and begin their professional employment, and this is best done through personal contact. It’s the personal touch that is going to get people engaged. 

We also have to work with employers, both public and private, to make them more aware of the importance of SAF membership for their employees. We need to get the leaders of these organizations to believe in and commit to professional engagement through SAF and other organizations.

What else would you like to pass along to SAF members? 

One thing I’ve thought a lot about is the need for sustainable development, which I talked about at the beginning of this interview. Sustainability is a little bit of a cliché, but actually it is an excellent principle to be able to produce the same amount of resources today without diminishing those resources for use by society in the future. We really should teach what we believe and practice what we teach about sustainability. Forestry has a tremendous opportunity in that regard. We learn about forests through our science, and based on that we teach about how we can manage forests sustainably. As foresters we practice what we know about resource management. SAF is extremely well-positioned strategically, intellectually, and philosophically to be an advocate for forests and forest management. 

Last, I certainly want to listen and respond to members’ ideas, issues, and concerns. Our members have a vast wealth of experience and wisdom, and are practical and insightful in pursuing actions that benefit society, our profession, and our society. Our members implement a host of excellent programs in their chapters, states, and regions, and I hope we can help them do that with strong support at the national level. And, of course, I thank those members for the opportunity to serve as their president.