Network News: Inspectors Archive  filter by date: March 2006

ATFS Named Terry Truttmann 2005 Inspector of the Year

Terry Truttman of Missouri earned the 2005 Wesley R. Meier Outstanding Inspecting Forester of the Year Award. He accepted this award at the 2005 National Tree Farmer Convention.

George Frame, of Concord, NH, Honored with the 2006 National Field Leadership Award

George Frame, of Concord, NH, Honored with the 2006 National Field Leadership Award

George Frame has been an active part of the New Hampshire Tree Farm Committee for eight years,serving in this year as the committee co-sponsor. In previous years he has served as chair and vice chair. Referred to by his colleagues as “trainer extraordinaire”, he is proactive in motivating inspectors to accomplish reinspections, and makes every effort to train inspectors who are interested in being a part of the Tree Farm program.

New Guidelines for Tree Farm Eligibility

New Guidelines for Tree Farm Eligibility

In 2002, a moratorium was in place that limited the acreage size of new Tree Farms entering ATFS to less than 10,000 contiguous acres. At their December 2005 meeting,the AFF Board of Trustees approved new guidelines for determining eligibility for ATFS certification.

PEFC Endorsement Process Begins

Five years ago ATFS began an initiative to re-engineer its certification program to fit emerging criteria for international certification systems,specifically the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Systems (PEFC).

Statistical Sampling For Reinspections

In 2002, ATFS contracted with Virginia Tech’s College of Forestry to explore the concept of stratified random sampling as a means of reducing the number of annual reinspections necessary for program policy conformance.

Nominate an ATFS Volunteer Inspector

Nominate an ATFS Volunteer Inspector Tree Farm Inspector of the Year Contest

The American Forest Foundation sponsors this annual award to recognize top performers among the thousands of Tree Farm inspecting foresters. Any inspecting forester can be nominated with approval from the state committee chair. The nominee does not necessarily have to be the state’s inspector of the year.

Jim Hull, Texas State Forester, Wins Sustained Excellence Award

Jim Hull was presented with the 2005 Sustained Excellence Award at the National Association of State Foresters (NASF) annual meeting in September. The Sustained Excellence award honors Jim for his long standing support for ATFS.

Voluntary Third-Party Certification

Voluntary Third-Party Certification of Individual Tree Farms

Increased interest in forest certification by the global forest products industry, customers, and non-governmental organizations has renewed interest in Tree Farm Certification.

Stumped Spring 2006

Stumped? Answers to Inspectors’ Most Frequently Asked Questions

Question: How do I know if I need to take a refresher course?

Question: I’ve been assigned to inspect a property I’ve inspected less than 5 years ago. Why is that?