CalVTP in Practice: Lessons learned from oak forest and meadow restoration with the Butano State Park Forest Health Project Field Training

Butano State Park, Pescadero

December 4th, 2024, 9:30am – 3:30pm

Link to Field Training Closed

Link to presentation abstracts

Trainers:

Shelby Kranich, ARC Forestry Registered Professional Forester

Registered Professional Forester #3249 and the Manager of Forest Resilience Strategy, Shelby Kranich, graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry concentrating in Wildland Fire and Fuels Management. Having been born and raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Ms. Kranich developed a deep interest in the unique forested and vegetative ecosystems that span from the ridges to coastline and was hopeful to return after college. Prior to obtaining her degree, Ms. Kranich took to her passion of forest management by spending several summers in college working on the steep forested terrain of the Santa Cruz Mountains conducting fieldwork and planning for all aspects of forestry, much of which consisted of collecting and analyzing data for a tree mortality assessment following the 2009 Lockheed Fire.

Ms. Kranich began working for ARC Forestry in June 2020 and has since built a wide skillset developing and strategizing some of the largest forest health and fuels reduction projects completed and ongoing in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Following the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire, she led post-fire forest assessments, monitoring, and planning efforts over approximately 24,000 acres of the burn scar with the ARC Forestry team. As the Manager of Forest Resilience Strategy, Ms. Kranich supports the development of and conducts final review of all Forest Management Plans and Management Strategy documents, CEQA documents, and non-CAL FIRE permits. To date, Ms. Kranich has operated as a project lead in which she leads planning meetings, coordinates field investigations, oversees active operations on several projects for contractor and permit compliance, and designs and develops large-scale permitting and planning documents. Ms. Kranich also specializes in field verification, layout, GIS, vegetation mapping, forest measurements and monitoring, agency negotiations, and surveys for cultural and historic resources.

David Cowman, District Forester, San Mateo Resource Conservation District

David Cowman is the District Forester (RPF #3236) for the San Mateo Resource Conservation District (RCD). Before joining the RCD, David spent five years with California State Parks in the Santa Cruz district in the natural resource management program. He joined the RCD in October of 2020, following the CZU Lightning Complex Fire. David holds a bachelor's degree from UC Santa Cruz and a Master of Science degree from San Jose State, where he studied the effects of prescribed fire on old-growth coast redwood stands in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Currently, as the District Forester for the RCD, David helps to plan, permit, and manage large-scale forest health projects throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains, for both public and private land managers. In December of this year (2024), David will be starting a new role at Sempervirens Fund as the Director of Land Stewardship, where he hopes to continue having a positive impact on coast redwood forests and adjacent ecosystems in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He has significant experience in prescribed fire, forest ecology, forest and wildfire resiliency, as well as managing all phases of large-scale forest management projects. This includes navigating complex regulatory systems, managing budgets and contracts, performing and coordinating wildlife surveys, and operational management of contractors.

Hudson Northrop, Environmental Scientist, California State Parks, Santa Cruz District 

Hudson Northrop is an Environmental Scientist with the Santa Cruz District of California State Parks. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Ecosystem Management and Forestry. He continued at UC Berkeley and earned a Master of Forestry degree in 2022 while working under Dr. Scott Stephens and Dr. John Battles with research focusing on snag and fuel dynamics following drought mortality in Sierra Nevada forests. During college he spent multiple summers collecting data for various forest and fire ecology research studies in California. In 2022, he worked for a consulting Registered Professional Forester in Plumas County conducting field surveys, mapping, and permit development for a variety of forest health and fuel reduction projects.

Since April 2023, Hudson has been working with California State Parks and has been involved in various forest health and prescribed fire projects in the Santa Cruz mountains. He assists with project planning and permitting, field layout and GIS mapping, and forest monitoring data collection and analysis. He has also helped draft multiple burn plans and assisted in prescribed burn operations in the Santa Cruz District.

Portia Halbert, Senior Environmental Scientist, California State Parks, Santa Cruz District

Portia Halbert is a Senior Environmental Scientist with the Santa Cruz District of California State Parks. For over 20 years she has been part of a resource management team who works to manage parkland and restore habitat in the Parks in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. Her experience is based on a wide variety of work such as planting and maintaining large areas with native plants, incorporating early detection and rapid response to refine parks’ work on invasive exotic plants, and working with sensitive species such as the California red-legged frog and San Francisco garter snake. She is also a member of the parks statewide burn crew, helping to reintroduce fire to the landscape.