CCF and CF Experience Requirement

Applicants must provide documentation, for each area, the time devoted specifically to activities in forestry, including a résumé to demonstrate that professional experience is experience areas below:

a. Resource Assessment

• Collect preliminary data for a parcel of forest land (e.g., soils, cover types, access, stream and riparian areas, and legal and regulatory environment) using both on-the-ground and external data collection methods to identify the inventory strategy required for the property and to determine general condition, land capabilities, and management options.
• Inventory selected resources to establish management direction and to facilitate achieving the stated objectives using accepted quantitative and/or qualitative methods.
• Inventory forest condition (e.g., weeds, insect, disease surveys, fuel loading, and damage) using accepted survey methods in order to establish the basis for decision-making.
• Delineate property boundaries using appropriate methods and licensed surveyors when required in order to determine the scope of the area to be managed.
• Perform a resource supply-and-demand assessment for a discrete geographical area to determine availability and market conditions.
• Determine potential productivity of the land base for identified resources using accepted procedures in order to evaluate management options.

c. Management Planning

• Confirm land ownership using legal records to assure authority to make management decisions.
• Describe the management goals determined in the stakeholder analysis in order to establish priorities and direction for management.
• Describe the existing resource condition using the resource assessment to provide a basis for developing science-based management options.
• Develop management options by evaluating economic and operational factors to meet owner objectives.
• Establish management options using stakeholder input, existing laws and regulations, and the resource assessment in order to select the preferred option to meet owner objectives and address foreseeable conflicts.
• Identify applicable standards, regulations, and practices by reviewing appropriate federal, state, and local laws, regulations, and voluntary practices to develop compliance strategies.
• Describe operational methods and techniques by formulating the silvicultural system and associated practices as appropriate to achieve the established owner objectives.
• Establish monitoring and adjustment strategies in order to ensure that owner objectives are met and conflicts mitigated by defining applicable procedures.
  
  

b. Stakeholder Analysis and Relations

• Identify potential stakeholders using relevant sources (e.g., landowner consultation, regulatory bodies, ownership records, lease documents, regionally important resource professionals and/or groups) to discern the level of their involvement in developing a strategy or management plan.
• Evaluate the relative importance of each stakeholder's position to determine its level of impact on management planning and implementation, using legal and objective criteria.
• Solicit input as appropriate by engaging stakeholders to incorporate their concerns effectively in management planning and implementation.
• Review management options and their implications through consultation to assist the landowner in establishing objectives.
• Advocate the importance of science-based forest policies, laws, and practices using appropriate channels of communication and influence to ensure the long-term capacity of the land to provide the variety of goods and services required by society.

d. Execution of Management Plan

• Implement the management plan using specified activities (e.g., surveying, harvesting, reforestation, site preparation, hazard reduction, road building) and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and voluntary practice standards in order to meet the owner objectives.
• Develop a budget by estimating costs and revenues for specified activities in order to fund the management plan.
• Prepare contracts or work plans by developing and negotiating detailed specifications in order to implement the management plans.
• Administer contracts or work plans to ensure monitoring and enforcing specifications to meet management plan objectives.
• Monitor activities by measuring specified variables and indicators in order to ensure that the goals of the management plan are met.
• Identify changes as they occur by monitoring indicators in order to adapt the management plan.