Ecosystem Services, Texas Field Trip
A visit to Temple-Inland lands. Photo: Patrick Holmes
Every other year, Professor Bradford Gentry (profile) co-teaches a course on emerging markets for ecosystem services. This spring, professors Mark Ashton (F&ES, profile), Maureen Burke (Yale School of Management) and Mike Fotos (Trinity College and visiting at Yale Political Science) co-taught the third offering of this course. Students conduct original research to determine whether markets for ecosystem services are real enough to provide payments and incentives to an actual landowner or land manager. Temple-Inland Corporation, a timber and forest-products company with over two-million acres of land in the southeastern United States, served as the "client" for the course and identified 6,000 acres of land in east Texas to be the focal point of the students’ research.
After several months of preliminary research, the class traveled to Broaddus, Texas to visit the Temple-Inland properties, meet with Temple-Inland staff, as well as numerous local, state and federal players in the markets for carbon, water and biodiversity services. The trip concluded with a presentation of preliminary results to Temple-Inland senior staff at their offices in Diboll, Texas.
After several months of preliminary research, the class traveled to Broaddus, Texas to visit the Temple-Inland properties, meet with Temple-Inland staff, as well as numerous local, state and federal players in the markets for carbon, water and biodiversity services. The trip concluded with a presentation of preliminary results to Temple-Inland senior staff at their offices in Diboll, Texas.
At the Temple-Inland board room in Diboll, TX. Back Row: Patrick Holmes, Dan Spethmann (Temple-Inland), Mike Fotos, Tara Moberg, Susan Marriott, Adrian Deveny, Jaime Carlson, Brad Gentry, Zack Parisa, Steven Wallander Front Row: Kim Carlson, Charlotte Kaiser, Tom Hodgman, Gordon Clark, Justin Westrum Photo: Gordon Clark
Left: Long-leaf pine restoration and red cockaded woodpecker habitat at Temple-Inland's Scrappin' Valley Preserve. Photo: Patrick Holmes Right: A waterfall (rare in east Texas) on Temple-Inland property. Photo: Gordon Clark
At the rodeo in Nacogdoches, Texas. Photo: Patrick Holmes
A picture of students canoeing where they stayed -- Stephen F. Austin State University's Piney Woods Conservation Center in Broaddus, Texas. Faculty from SFA informed us that Yale forestry students had last come to east Texas 100 years ago. Photo: Sara Eisenstat
