For most graduate students, a publication that contributes to the professional debate is a major marker of success. Jonathan Thompson sets his sights a bit further. He wants to contribute to the larger public discussion of natural resource policy, and he's using his writing as well as his science skills to make that happen.
Jonathan, a second-year PhD student in the Forest Science Department, is one of this year's two P.F. Yerex and Nellie Buck Yerex Graduate Fellowship recipients. His area of concentration is fire ecology, but his interests cover a full spectrum of natural resource issues.
"I want to use science to test the effectiveness of natural resource policy, and influence change through public involvement," he says. "Does the endangered species policy best protect endangered species? Is there a better way, and if so, what is it? I'm interested in adding data to these debates."
A lot of natural resource policy is based on speculation and extrapolation from very small samples, Jonathan says. With new technologies, it's possible to gather and organize information much more efficiently, and extract data that's much more realistic.
Jonathan's PhD research looks at the Biscuit fire of 2002, the largest wildfire in Oregon history. That fire has generated a tremendous amount of controversy, and very little information exists to support the different viewpoints. Jonathan is using field plots, satellite imagery, aerial photos, and management history to assess how a variety of factors — previous fires, vegetation, weather, topography, and management practices — may have influenced that fire.
"This type of work has not been done before, and it will be of considerable interest to managers, stakeholders, and policymakers who are currently working on legislation to deal with post-fire management," say Dr. Thomas Spies, Jonathan's PhD advisor.
On top of his PhD activities, Jonathan writes a monthly US Forest Service publication called Science Findings. Each issue highlights one team of scientists' research, in a clear, attractive format aimed at policy makers and the general public. Circulation is about 15,000, not counting on-line readership, and covers a wide range of stakeholders from conservation groups to congressional offices.
The challenge for a publication like Science Findings, Jonathan says, is to make it comprehensible for a general audience without degrading the technical aspects of the study. Scientists can be very fussy about how their research is presented. Their concerns must be balanced with the mission of the publication: to engage and inform an audience of intelligent, if not technically sophisticated readers.
"I think the public generally needs to hear more of the complexity of forest science," he says. "It's often made too simplistic by the media: 'all logging is bad,' or 'environmentalists don't care about jobs.' Anyone in the sciences will tell you there are a million shades of grey, and to the extent that we can communicate that to the public, they'll start to care more about policy."
Jonathan's professors say he's one of the strongest and most productive writers ever to come through the forest science program. Dr. K. Norman Johnson, his master's degree advisor, predicts Jonathan's peer-reviewed articles will be highly cited in years to come, because of their novel approach to ecosystem management in its social, economic, and legal contexts.
"He spans the boundary between ecological science and policy, by helping evaluate ecological ideas for policy makers, and by explaining the policy implications of those ideas to the general public," Dr. Johnson says.
Jonathan appreciates the encouragement he gets from his department, and says that living in Oregon, where the general public is so involved in environmental issues, is a great inspiration for all students in the natural resources. "If I'm exceptional at anything, it's the fact that my interests span both the social side and the scientific side of natural resources," he says. "I'm happy to write at non-technical levels, but I'm also very interested in statistics and geographic modeling. For some reason, those don't tend to go together."
