Though the federal government impacts private forest management across the United States through legislation such as the Clean Water Act, state-level regulations applied to private forest landowners vary remarkably. Despite this diversity of policies, little is known about how variations in regulatory intensity (defined here as number of forestry regulations) correlate with state-level political and socioeconomic characteristics. In this study, we use a quantitative approach to explore the intensity of regulation on forest practices impacting private landowners across all 50 states. We quantified intensity by tabulating the number of regulated forest practices, then used a quasi-Poisson regression to estimate the relationship between regulatory intensity and state-level characteristics, including forestland ownership types, the economic importance of the forest industry, and measures of state environmentalism. Results indicated a positive association between regulatory intensity and the percent of private corporate land, environmental voting records of elected officials, and direct democracy. Foresters and landowners may learn from these relationships, consider how to influence different policies, and build or achieve greater levels of public trust. This study starts to help us explain why state-level forestry policies differ, not just how they differ.

Private forest land policies in the U.S. differ by state and range from regulatory to non-regulatory. The state of California has a highly regulatory policy system to ensure sustainable forest management, and the state's family forest landowners, who hold 20% of the state's forests, navigate this regulatory system to achieve their management objectives. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 33 family forest landowners to better understand their perceptions of state forest policies, including the policies' efficacy and how they impact landowner behavior. We found that participants voiced general acceptance of California's forest policies, though they described significant concerns because of financial burdens and regulatory uncertainty. They had nuanced views regarding how the policies protect public trust resources and private property rights, suggesting that landowners' public responsibilities and private rights are not always at odds.

In the U.S., the combination of federal, state, and local forest rules and programs create the policy environment in which private forest landowners manage their land, which in turn impacts the quality and conservation of ecosystem services produced. While previous studies provide overviews of forest policies impacting private landowners at moments in time, they lack the depth and perspective needed to describe the political context of forest policies, including the mechanisms underlying this diversity: the how and why of particular policies. This study fills that gap by utilizing interviews with policy experts from 12 case-study states to investigate the range of forest policies present in the U.S. We also explored the perceived trade-offs between protection of public trust resources and private property rights on private forest lands in their states, and the key actors (groups) influencing policy changes over time. Overall, the strong role of private property rights in the United States was consistent across case-study states, although most experts indicated a balance between protecting public trust resources and private property rights. The variability of policy tools employed among states suggests many avenues to achieve this balance, including policies that are created through market-based mechanisms rather than the state (i.e., certification). We also found that local-level regulations contributed to diversity and, at times, conflict and confusion within states. Finally, although landowner stewardship is not a policy tool, we found that states implicitly and explicitly relied on landowner knowledge and values to protect public trust resources, a strategy that some participants agreed fostered trust between the state and its private forest landowners.

Rural towns across the US have undergone economic and social restructuring. We focus on two former timber towns adjacent to public lands that are transitioning to new production economies, wherein the communities develop new economic sectors. One of our cases has developed data centers, and the other prisons. Through in-depth interviews with residents, we explore the shifts toward these new sectors and their impacts on community social adaptability, in particular human and social capital and community identity. In both of the communities, there are well-paying jobs in the new production sectors. However, indicators of social adaptability have diverged greatly. In the data center community, there are higher perceived levels of human and social capital, while the prison community has lower levels. Members of both communities describe their community identity as in flux, and voice apprehension about growth and development of new industries, including the possibility that the communities may be shifting single-industry dependence from one sector (timber) to a new sector. Both communities are rebuilding their relationships to adjacent public lands and view those public lands as opportunities for economic diversification.

Formal private land conservation programs can be essential for achieving conservation goals, especially in ecosystems with substantial private ownership. Most deciduous oak woodlands in Humboldt County, California, and throughout the Pacific Northwest are located on private lands. The loss of these woodlands to conifer encroachment is a critical conservation concern, with implications for wildlife habitat, range management, cultural resources, biodiversity, and fire management. Private land programs depend on both incentives and voluntary cooperation. Through interviews and participant observation, we explored how and why landowners participate in oak woodland restoration. We are particularly interested in the role of social capital, which consists of trust and expectations of reciprocity. We found that oak woodland restoration depends on building social capital in order to leverage different skill sets and gain access to resources and technical expertise. Rather than a side effect of successful private land conservation, we assert that social capital is a necessary part of it, and that building and maintaining social capital can itself constitute a conservation goal.

Policies impacting forest management on privately-owned lands demonstrate remarkable variety across the United States, with each state emphasizing different approaches to balancing private property rights with the protection of public trust resources. Though private property rights are historically paramount in the US, previous researchers have identified a variety of policy approaches on private forest lands, from regulatory to non-regulatory. We expand on these categories through a discourse analysis of state-produced documents (including legislation, rules, and best management practices manuals). Through this analysis, we create a typology of categories that express assumptions about landowner behavior and the appropriate role of state intervention. The typology identifies four discourse categories used to varying degrees within each state: landowner stewardship, forestry expert stewardship, science-bureaucracy, and participatory conservation. This typology allows for comparison of policy approaches and comparison across resources and jurisdictions.

This chapter explores the intersections and impacts of two economic sectors, cannabis production and ecological restoration, in a rural place. The interactions between the cannabis and restoration sectors in the Mattole illustrate how legal and illegal sectors can complement and compete with each other economically, including in terms of employment and human capital. Cannabis production, in contrast to restoration, has received little academic attention from researchers interested in rural economic development. The Mattole is located in Humboldt County, part of the "Emerald Triangle," which has relied on cannabis production as its dominant economic sector for decades. The Mattole is isolated, with rugged, mountainous terrain and poor roads. It has no incorporated municipalities, professional police or fire department, or hospitals. The cannabis and restoration sectors were established almost in tandem, and both were initially small scale and operated largely at the margins of society, with little state oversight or taxation.

•Cannabis production is economically and culturally important for many rural places.•Researchers interested in rural development have largely failed to integrate cannabis production into their analyses.•Legalization of cannabis offers an opportunity to engage with this sector.•Cannabis production intersects with legal sectors, including ecological restoration.

The restoration economy has seen significant growth in the United States in recent decades, especially within the context of rural economic development. This paper traces the establishment of the restoration economy in the Mattole River Watershed, USA. Through semi-structured interviews and participant observation, we identified cultural, social, human, financial and political capitals as important components in the creation and maintenance of the restoration economy. This study seeks to highlight the socioeconomic benefits of restoration: how it can create employment and economic diversification, (re)connect people to their landscapes, promote skill and knowledge development, and build trust and reciprocity among community stakeholders. We end with a discussion of the important contributions of the restoration economy in a rural place, and key lessons for potential stakeholders in the development of restoration economies in other communities.

Researchers have described shifting relationships between communities and Protected Areas (PAs), from excluding communities to consultative relationships to participatory models. This research focuses on a PA created on formerly industrial timberland that was the focus of conflict between environmental activists and the timber industry. In a nearby formerly timber-dependent community, we assessed community use and support of the PA, and its perceived purposes and benefits, through a survey of residents and interviews with key stakeholders. Despite intense conflict surrounding its creation, we found support for the PA, and our case suggests a new possible relationship between PAs and communities, which is mitigating and helping to resolve natural resource conflict. We also found that community well-being benefits of the PA were unclear; we suggest that PA management should include cultural, economic, and historical context in objectives and interpretive materials; and should work to create economic opportunities connected to the PA.

This study evaluates 12 years’ worth of clinical data on transvaginal mesh complications and depression or self-harm in women who received a midurethral mesh sling.

In order to increase the pace and scale of managing forests to reduce wildfire risk in the western U.S., federal agencies have adopted policies that promote an all lands management (ALM) approach, which extends management actions across jurisdictional boundaries. To better implement such policies, ALM approaches require new governance systems that overcome barriers found in existing systems, which typically address jurisdictions separately. Polycentric governance systems, characterized by multiple and diverse actors at different scales operating in coordination with one another under an overarching set of rules, have emerged to address wildfire risk in multi-ownership landscapes. We describe these polycentric systems using three case studies of US Forest Service-Natural Resources Conservation Service Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership projects in Oregon and California. While all three cases demonstrate polycentric systems, we found diversity in terms of partnering organizations and levels of success in implementing wildfire risk reduction projects. Lessons from our research can inform more effective implementation of ALM policies for managing natural resources and processes in multi-jurisdictional landscapes. Our research suggests these systems can be strengthened when: bottom-up and top-down processes and incentives for establishing them converge; actors within the system coordinate effectively; policies enable flexibility and adaptiveness for how systems function in different places; multiple actors at multiple scales are able to supplement one another's capacity; and legal and policy mechanisms facilitate efficient transfer of funding and resources between actors in the system to accomplish work.

Midurethral slings are the mainstay of treatment for stress urinary incontinence. The role of cystourethroscopy to detect lower urinary tract injury following retropubic midurethral slings is well-established; however, its role following transobturator or single-incision sling placement remains controversial. Some advocate "routine" whereas others advocate for "selective" cystourethroscopy. This paper reviews the arguments for and against cystourethroscopy to detect lower urinary tract injury following transobturator and single-incision slings.

While non-industrial private forest landowners have a significant amount of forest landholdings in the US, they are underrepresented in the California cap-and-trade market forest offset program. Additional participation could benefit both the market and non-industrial private forest landowners. We developed a mail questionnaire which served as both a survey instrument and outreach tool about the market. Questions covered forest ownership objectives, landowners' future plans for forests, views of climate change, and attitudes and intentions regarding forest carbon offset project development. We sampled from five Northern California counties for a total of 143 usable surveys. Three different groups of landowners were identified based on their management objectives: amenity (including protecting nature and recreation); legacy (passing land to children and/or maintaining a farm or ranch); and income. Landowner objective groups differed on several key variables, particularly related to potential motivations for joining the market, while all landowners expressed concerns about protocol requirements. Regardless of ownership objectives, over half expressed that receiving revenue from their forests would be an important motivator to join, though most were unwilling to satisfy protocol requirements, even after learning of the potential benefits of program participation. Thus, participation appears to be limited by the costly and complex project development process, as well as a lack of landowner awareness. Extending these lessons, we assert that different landowners may approach payment for ecosystem services programs with different needs, awareness, and motivations, which provide important lessons for those who conduct landowner outreach and for PES program designers.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) commonly takes a relapsing form. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has be suggested as a means of maintaining remission. Brief courses of TMS at about monthly intervals appear to provide health benefits. Objective: To examine whether such brief courses of TMS are better conceptualized as maintaining remission, or as the provision of early relapse treatment. Method: 25 series of treatment (18 different patients) were considered. Pre- and post-treatment 6-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD6) and 7 visual analogue scales (VASs) were collected, along with pretreatment Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S) and post-treatment CGIImprovement (I). Results: Pre-treatment HAMD6 and CGI-S indicated that many patients were symptomatic and in early relapse. Post-treatment HAMD6 indicated that many patients had achieved remission, and this was supported by the CGI-I. The VAS scores also improved. Conclusions: Short courses of TMS at about monthly intervals have beneficial results and are better conceptualized as early relapse treatment (ERT).