Workshops

Organizers: Duncan Lutes, US Forest Service; Mary Lata, US Forest Service

FFI is an interagency, desktop, software application designed to assist managers with collection, storage, and analysis of vegetation and fuels data. This workshop will describe the basic FFI functionality using presentations, demonstrations, and exercises.

Full Description: 
The FFI application is designed to help managers and practitioners track plot level change in vegetation and fuels over time and is a valuable tool for meeting monitoring mandates and determining the success of management activities. Originally released in 2006, FFI has been used extensively for storing, managing, and reporting vegetation and fuels data collected by Federal land management agencies and bureaus, states, local governments, and non-government entities for many years. FFI is a database-driven framework that organizes sampling protocols, stores field data, and provides analysis tools for fuels and vegetation sampling and monitoring programs. Data stored in FFI are useful for assessing the effectiveness of land management activities (e.g., fuels treatments) and to demonstrate and document that land management objectives are being met. The workshop will provide an overview of the FFI application for potential new users and those who would like a refresher of FFI’s capabilities. The class will include presentations, demonstrations, and exercises. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop with the latest version of FFI-Lite installed. FFI-Lite can be found here: https://www.frames.gov/ffi/manuals-and-software

Organizers: Lindsey Quam, New Mexico Forestry Division – Deputy Director and Tribal Liaison; Natalia Shaw, NM Forestry Division – Tribal Resource & Restoration Coordinator

The intent of this workshop is to provide participants avenues of cultural awareness through discussions regarding the general history tribes have experienced in the U.S., discuss cultural etiquette, tribal organization and methods of communication and miscommunication.

This workshop is geared toward non-tribal and non-tribal program participants. 

Full Description: 
Many agencies, organizations and people either have a desire to work with Tribes or are asked to consult and communicate with Tribes; however, many do not know how or get mixed results. Often this is due to a lack of knowledge, skills, resources and understanding of how to work with tribes and information about tribes in general. The intent is to provide participants with an opportunity to discuss, learn and formulate a general understanding of tribal history as it relates to the formation of the United States, exposure to general cultural views and customs of tribes, explanation of the hierarchy or organization of tribal governments all forming a baseline on how individuals may use this knowledge to put into practice effective Tribal consultation communication and collaboration. Most discussions, lessons and information are derived from a New Mexico based context; however general lessons can be carried over throughout the Southwest.

**Ground rules will be in effect; however, individuals may find discussions and content offensive, but true learning is based on pushing comfort boundaries. If you cannot be open to discussion with a willingness to listen to a particular point of view and recognize the traumatic history of Tribal people in relation to the federal government; this workshop may not be for you.

Organizers: John Hogland, USDA RMRS; Joseph St. Peter, University of Montana

In this workshop we will explore how to set up a geospatial data science environment using Conda, use that environment to explore Raster Tools functionality, and define and quantify treatment costs used to bring a landscape to a fire resilient condition using open source data, local processing, and cloud resources.

Full Description: 
Remotely sensed data, newer technologies, and modeling frameworks are fundamentally changing the way in which we understand and manage resources. In this workshop, we will discuss how to setup a data science processing environment using Conda, demonstrate how to acquire raster and vector data from STAC, OSM, and REST services, explore Raster Tools geospatial and machine learning functionality, and demonstrate how Raster Tools can be used to define and quantify treatment costs at fine spatial detail, across broad extents, using Jupyter Notebooks and Python. Our notebooks and use case walk analysts through the basic steps needed to perform a wider range of spatial and machine learning analyses that can be used to define and spatially quantify existing and desired future conditions, mechanical treatment and operation costs, and further illustrate how analysts can standardize this type of workflow using open-source data streams and software. Workshop learning objectives include: 1) learning about environments, 2) explore Raster Tools API, 3) learn how to access cloud-based data and services, 4) learn how to spatially quantify existing and desired future conditions, 5) learn how to quantify delivered costs, and 6) explore ways to summarize spatially explicit estimates to report on costs and potential revenues.

This workshop is intended for students, practitioners, managers, researchers, and enthusiasts interested in open-source geospatial analyses, practical applications of geospatial processing within the context of fuels management, and/or streamlined parallel processing architecture within Python’s data science ecosystem. Workshop requirements include a laptop with internet access. While a basic understanding of Python scripting will be helpful to fully participate in the workshop, all materials presented provide fully scripted examples with detailed instruction that can be accessed at any time during and after the workshop.