An adventurous spirit: Volunteers help address tree poaching on public lands

Have you ever thought of pairing your next kayak trip or mountain bike excursion with data collection for environmental scientists? That’s what a group of more than 300 volunteers did when they joined Adventure Scientists. 

Adventure Scientists is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Bozeman, Montana, with a mission to “equip partners with data collected from the outdoors that are crucial to addressing environmental and human health challenges.” The group’s Timber Tracking project engages volunteers in tree sample collection across the United States. 

Working with Rich Cronn, a research geneticit with Pacific Northwest Research Station, Adventure Scientists volunteers have collected more than 4,000 samples from five species of trees across the United States that are often targeted for timber theft. The five species are bigleaf maple, black walnut, western redcedar, yellow-cedar, and coast redwood. 

So far, the volunteers have collected tree samplings from 39 states, ranging from Alaska to the California-Mexico border in the Western United States, and from Vermont to Florida in the Eastern United States. 

The goal of Cronn’s tree genetics research is to develop a timber forensic database that can be used by USDA Forest Service Law Enforcement Investigations, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement, and state law enforcement agencies to investigate timber poaching on public lands.

The Role of Tree Genetics in Timber Poaching Cases

Illegal logging is a worldwide problem that degrades ecosystems. Even markets such as in the United States where illegal timber is relatively rare report about 1,000 significant hardwood theft cases per year. 

Through a partnership with Adventure Scientists, researchers are able to leverage the skills and interests of the outdoor community to collect data in many environments. These volunteers have been invaluable in enhancing the capacity of the Pacific Northwest Research Station and Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations to develop forensic databases for timber theft. 

Ellen Kirby (left) and Sean Yam collect black walnut samples in William B. Bankhead National Forest, Alabama. Photo courtesy of Adventure Scientists.

Tree samples collected by highly trained volunteers contribute to data used for forensic individualization, or “DNA fingerprinting.” These unique DNA profiles allow law Ellen Kirby (left) and Sean Yam collect black walnut samples in William B. Bankhead National Forest, Alabama. Ellen Kirby (left) and Sean Yam collect black walnut samples in William B. Bankhead National Forest, Alabama. Photo courtesy of Adventure Scientists. enforcement to match items of wood to specific stumps or logs. DNA sequences also make it possible to determine the species of the tree, and even the geographic origin of the wood. 

Geneticists at the Pacific Northwest Research Station have used these kinds of DNA databases to assist U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Investigations sleuth bigleaf maple theft on the Olympic National Forest in the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region. These genetic markers are also being used by the Pacific Northwest hardwood industry to manage clonal inventories in breeding populations and evaluate marker associations with wood grain variation. 

Adventure Scientists volunteers carry on a long history of the relationship between our forests and our communities. For more than 100 years, the Forest Service has brought people and communities together and relied on volunteers to make significant contributions to the legacy of conservation for future generations. 

“Their contribution to this effort is a highly visible example of how the Forest Service works with groups to ‘care for the land and serve people,’” says Cronn. “The Adventure Scientist volunteers perform valuable service work for our agency. These volunteers serve as ambassadors for the Forest Service and are clearly dedicated to the agency mission of ‘working together [and] preserving the public lands legacy.’”