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30. Outdoor Industry Involvement in Reforestation Projects with Mindy Crowell

Writer's picture: Meg CarneyMeg Carney


In episode 30 of the Outdoor Minimalist Podcast, we are talking about reforestation projects!


This is a really interesting and important topic because how reforestation is done and how companies claim these types of projects are carried out can vary.


To help explain the importance of reforestation and how more outdoor industry companies can get involved, I’d like to introduce Mindy Crowell. Mindy is the Reforestation Partnerships Director at the National Forest Foundation.


Mindy holds a Master’s Certificate in Natural Resources Conflict Resolution from the University of Montana along with experience in developing and implementing public engagement campaigns, facilitation, and fund development.


As a former co-host and producer on the Outlandish podcast, Mindy loves hearing about the stories and adventures people have on our public lands and she is passionate about positively impacting America’s favorite national real-estate.


National Forest Foundation



 

This transcript was edited to remove some filler words and phrases and is not verbatim according to what is spoken in the audio recording.



Meg: So thank you for joining me today, Mindy. I am really looking forward to learning more about your work with the National Forest Foundation and how more outdoor industry companies can get involved in these important restoration projects.


But before we get into all of that, can you tell us a little bit more about how you got involved in outdoor recreation and your current role in the outdoor industry?


Mindy: Hi Meg! Yeah, I can definitely tell you more about that.


Thanks for having me here today. My role in outdoor recreation is really through my work with the National Forest Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization that supports conservation work on national forests.


I’m kind of a self-described “indoorsy” person normally. However, I always love to tell people that there are so many different ways to recreate outside and get that amazing outdoor experience—it doesn’t have to look a certain way. So, Meg, for me, that’s glamping. I’m usually real close to the Boise National Forest, and my husband and I built out the back of a truck to make camping a little bit nicer for me. I just love getting out with the dogs, hitting the trails, and hanging out by the river.


Meg: Those are all awesome things. I also like glamping. I probably don’t do it as much as I’d like to, but I think all types of camping are fun.


Mindy: Yes, yeah. I was just looking through your podcast list and saw that you did the public lands prescription episode. I’m such a huge believer in how good it is for our mental and physical health to just be outside. That can mean standing in a park or in a forest—it doesn’t have to be hardcore recreating, which I think is what we see a lot of.



Meg: Yeah, especially on social media. I definitely had to make that mental switch to remind myself that I’m still spending time outside even if I’m just lounging in my backyard—it’s still beneficial.


Mindy: Yes, yeah, totally. Totally.


Meg: So, with the National Forest Foundation—which we can call NFF moving forward—can you talk a little bit more about what exactly it is, when it was established, and maybe its mission? Mindy: Yeah, I’d love to. The National Forest Foundation is a nonprofit, and it’s an interesting and unique one in that it was chartered by Congress in 1992. What that means, Meg, is that we have a special relationship working with the U.S. Forest Service. We are one of the only conservation organizations that works solely with the U.S. Forest Service.


Another thing that that means is that we work only on national forest lands. So, that’s different than a national park, like Yellowstone or Glacier. Sometimes those get the headlines, and they’re beautiful and amazing, but what I love about national forests is that they’re free for everyone to enjoy. And I know you’re a dog lover—I’m a dog lover, too. You can take your dogs on national forests, so I think it’s important to differentiate between those.


What the National Forest Foundation does is help support the U.S. Forest Service in taking care of those lands. We work on everything from fixing a trail or campground that may have been overrun in the last couple of years with the increase in recreation to larger-scale projects.


The part I work on is the reforestation team. We help raise funds to get trees planted. I’m sure you’ve heard, and your listeners have probably heard, about the catastrophic wildfires that have been happening. We really step in to help raise money to get work done on the lands that were devastated by those wildfires, including replanting trees.


Meg: That’s interesting. So, it’s kind of across-the-board rehabilitation, per se, but not just reforestation?


Mindy: Yes, and that’s a great word for it—rehabilitation. It’s definitely not just reforestation. We have programs that help get youth outside who maybe don’t typically have access to national forests or public lands.


We also do forest restoration work, like funding prescribed burns or removing timber that’s dead or has been killed by insects to prevent wildfires. So, we have our hands in a lot of different projects across the country.


We now have staff from Alaska all the way down to Texas, and we cover the East Coast, too. At this point, we’re kind of sprinkled across the country.


Meg: Since your role is primarily focused on reforestation, let’s stick with that topic area if that’s okay with you. The role of reforestation is interesting to me because, as you mentioned, we often think of wildfires and the need to regrow those areas.


But are there other areas in conservation and recreation where reforestation happens, aside from just replanting after a wildfire?


Mindy: Oh, yeah, definitely. I mentioned insect kill earlier. We do a lot of work in Colorado, where they’re struggling with pine beetle kill, which can damage forests. Climate change is also impacting forests, as well as invasive species.


The cool thing about what we do, Meg, is that I’m not the one deciding, “Oh, there was a fire or some other disruption, so we need to plant trees.” Instead, we rely on the expertise of the Forest Service to make those determinations. They have scientists—silviculturists and ecologists—who are out there figuring out where reforestation will have the maximum impact.


They look at how it can restore habitat, support water resources, and more. They also determine which types of trees need to be planted and why. I’m always really grateful that I don’t have to make those decisions.


Meg: Yeah, having experts in all the different areas of the country makes a lot of sense. It ensures you’re getting the appropriate biodiversity and all that jazz.


Mindy: Definitely. And, you know, you’ll see articles come out every once in a while about reforestation being a hot topic right now.


A lot of organizations are doing this work, which I think is crucial for overcoming these challenges. However, it’s really important to make sure the right trees are planted in the right place at the right time.


Meg: What would the impact be if you planted the wrong trees?


Mindy: Oh gosh, I’m going to be winging this a little bit, but... there could definitely be problems with drought, for example. If you planted trees that need a lot of water in an area that doesn’t have sufficient water resources, that could be a big issue.


Invasive species are another concern. I’m not an expert on them, but planting species that don’t belong or aren’t naturally occurring in a certain area can cause a lot of devastation.


Meg: Yeah, that makes sense. And because you cover so much of the United States, I’m also curious—do you do any sort of rehabilitation for prairie landscapes?


Mindy: Oh, the NFF does. In my particular program, we do not, but we definitely cover national forests and grasslands.


Meg: Okay, that’s awesome. Yeah, I feel like oftentimes, when we talk about these things, the grasslands kind of get left out.


Mindy: They do. They do. And they’re beautiful. You know, Meg, folks can go to our website because we have our hands on a lot of different things. That’s nationalforests.org—you can see all of our different programs there. And we have some very cool grassland restoration projects going on.


Meg: Perfect. I’ll put the link to that in the episode notes so if people want to check that out later, they can. So, since we’re talking a lot about the different programs and things like that, what are some of your ongoing restoration projects right now?


Mindy: Specific to reforestation?


Meg: Yeah.


Mindy: Well, we have—so every year, we get different projects from the Forest Service. The way that it works, Meg, is that they reach out to all their local employees across the country and ask, “Okay, what projects do you need funded this year?” They put together a big comprehensive list, and we get those projects each year. Then we fundraise to support those projects.


And as you can probably guess, we have projects really heavily focused on the West Coast—Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana—where we’ve been hit really hard with wildfires. But we also have projects in the South. For instance, we recently got a project in Texas. We have projects over on the Chattahoochee National Forest.


So, it really depends. But anywhere that has a national forest likely could have a tree-planting project on it, depending on the Forest Service team there and their needs.


Meg: Okay, that’s awesome.


Mindy: Yeah, and I love this tool that we have on our website. If you want to go check it out, it’s this tree-planting map. It shows everywhere we’ve planted trees on a map from 2018 until last year, and we update it each year. It’s cool—you can check a box for each year and see what we’ve done. It has little color-coded trees all over the country to show you where we planted.


Meg: That’s so cool. I love those interactive website maps that demonstrate different projects and growth and things like that. I’ll have to check it out.


Mindy: Yeah, definitely. And it’s fun to see. A lot of people don’t know—is there a national forest close to me? I think the statistic is that the average person is within a two-hour drive of a national forest.


So, it’s cool to just go on there. Or if you’re traveling to a new state, you can check it out and see if there are national forests nearby.


Meg: Yeah, I think, like you mentioned, I definitely gravitate toward national forests a lot more because I travel with my dogs. But a lot of people are more likely to go into those designated national or state parks. National forests offer a lot of great recreation opportunities.


Mindy: Oh yeah, and they’re gorgeous. You know, there are even typically national forests close to those park systems or the kind of “bigger stars,” and you can go spend a day there. You’re kind of in the same environment—it’s just probably less crowded and, um, free.


Meg: Yes, that’s always a plus. So, you mentioned that you do some fundraising to support these projects. Is that how all of the restoration and reforestation projects are funded?


Mindy: Pretty much, I guess, is the simple answer there. So, I talked a little bit about our partnership with the Forest Service. We’re raising funds for the seedlings. The Forest Service is still using their budget or their staff capacity to go out and plant the trees.


They hire the crews—another thing I’m very thankful I don’t have to do. These folks are out there with these one- to two-year-old seedlings on their backs. Their backpacks are probably like 20 or 30 pounds, and they have to schlep these things up really rugged terrain to get them planted in the ground.


So, what I fundraise for—what my team fundraises for—is to purchase those seedlings for the Forest Service. It’s kind of like a matching program.


Meg: Okay, can you explain a matching program? Is that like if you purchase something...?


Mindy: Yeah, so a matching program is where we share the financial burden with someone else. The Forest Service is spending some of their money to get the work done, and we’re coming in to help bolster that.


They might have to spend quite a bit to get the project running and prepared, and then we come in—literally—with donor dollars. And I’ll talk to you a little bit about the difference between all of our donors, but with donor dollars, we’re literally purchasing seedlings.


Meg: Okay, that makes sense. My head keeps going to when you see on people’s websites—often product producers—something like, “Buy one bag, and we’ll plant a tree.” Is it similar to that?


Mindy: Yes! We have a lot of partners, corporate partners or small business partners, that sell a product, and they love that model. I think it’s just so approachable for customers. People are really attracted to that.


So that would be something where, for example, if it was a small business partner selling T-shirts and they were doing a “Buy one T-shirt, plant one tree” campaign, they would coordinate with us and say, “Okay, we’re going to sell 5,000 T-shirts, so we’re going to need to purchase 5,000 seedlings.”


And with our model, one dollar donated equals one tree planted. So that’s how those kinds of marketing campaigns work.


Meg: That’s good to know. I’m always skeptical of those types of campaigns unless they’re really explicit about the tree-planting project itself. If they do partner with you, does it say “partnered with NFF” or the National Forest Foundation or something like that?


Mindy: We really hope so! We share our logo with all of our corporate partners so they can include that. Small business partners get a Tree Planting Partner badge. And I love that you look for that, Meg, because I think that’s important. You want to see who they’re planting trees with. Is it an organization you’d donate to yourself? Are they using a model that ensures those trees are getting planted the right way?


Meg: Yeah. So since we’re on this topic of funding and company partnerships, are most of the companies you partner with in the outdoor industry, or is it kind of random?


Mindy: It’s so random! And I love it when we see a partner come in and think, “Whoa, I wouldn’t have thought they’d be involved in this kind of model.” I mean, we have folks that sell outdoor gear, but we also have a wine partner—Copper Cane Wineries. Recently, Maybelline and Walgreens launched a really cool tree-planting campaign with us. We have a partner that makes a sustainable product, Boxed Water. So it’s really all over the board. This year, someone in blockchain came to us wanting to purchase trees!


Anybody can partner. And with that case, too, Meg, I think it’s important to know anyone can get involved at any level. We have little kids that donate five dollars, and that equals five trees. I think it’s important for people to know this is an approachable model. I love that we have huge partners that give us a million dollars—that’s amazing. But I also think it’s just as important for my seven-year-old niece to be able to do a fundraiser with her class.


Meg: I guess I didn’t realize individuals could donate, too. That makes a lot of sense. For some reason, I thought it was just corporate partnerships. But that is really cool. Like, maybe an elementary school class could do a fundraiser, and it could all go to planting trees.


Mindy: Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s really an important piece of it. National forests are for everyone, so it makes sense to me that our model exemplifies that and lets everyone be involved at any level.


Meg: When we’re thinking about joining or contributing at any level, I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast are also small business owners. I’ve interviewed so many outdoor industry or sustainable companies, and a lot of them are in those early stages.


It’s hard to implement a bunch of certifications all at once. But with NFF, it seems like you can contribute at any degree. It doesn’t have to be a million dollars—it could be a smaller amount per product sold.


So if there was a company just starting out, or really at any level, how exactly would they get involved and start that partnership?


Mindy: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, Meg. We recently brought on a new team member to the reforestation team, and she is really focusing on our small business partner program, trying to bolster that and provide support to our small business partners. So, if someone wanted to be a small business partner, the way we have it set up is pretty plug-and-play.


They can go to our website and sign themselves up—they don’t have to have an additional meeting or schedule a time to talk to anyone. There is a small sign-up fee that helps pay for the colleague I just mentioned and allows her to support the program. But it’s a one-time fee, and after that, a small business owner can make any donation, at any amount, on whatever schedule works for them.


They can choose to do a monthly donation, quarterly, or whatever fits their needs. We just ask that they stay involved at some level within a six-month period. That helps us track who’s active and who might be taking a little break, so we know who is actively engaging.


They could donate $25 a month, or they could do $1,000 in a particular month if they want to adjust based on their budget. It doesn’t have to be a set amount. And no matter what they do, it’s always one dollar equals one tree planted. They can keep track of the dollars they’ve donated and know exactly how many trees they’ve planted with us.


The other thing that I think is really cool, Meg, is that we send out a resource kit to all of our partners. That kit helps them tell the story of what they’re doing. They get that partner badge, and we encourage our partners to shout it from the rooftops because part of our mission is to actively engage people in the care and protection of public lands.


The kit includes resources like social media posts or signage for their store, and we provide those graphics. We also send additional resources to all of our partners, especially around this time of year—you can guess, with Earth Month—and just when they sign up in general.


Meg: Yeah, that’s so nice because I think sometimes, especially when people are telling their sustainability or green story, it can be hard to know how to really explain how that is beneficial.


Mindy: Yeah, and I’m glad you brought that up. We also do an impact report every year. That report is available for anyone to see on our website, and it explains everything in a really approachable way.


For example, it breaks down how many trees planted equate to how much carbon was removed or how many times you could drive back and forth from LA to New York. We try to put it in a hundred different ways so that it’s easy for our partners to talk to their customers about what they’re doing.


Meg: So, I’m not sure exactly how to phrase this question, but why don’t you think more outdoor industry brands are getting involved in this type of program?


Mindy: I don’t know if it’s just a lack of understanding about how easy it is to get engaged. I think, in particular, for small businesses, if people are just hustling, it might seem like one more thing they have to search for and look into, which could feel overwhelming.


The other cool thing to mention is that there are a lot of nonprofits out there doing great work. Of course, I’m representing NFF, but I would encourage folks to look up who’s doing local work in their area. If being hyper-local is important to them, we might have staff there doing work aside from reforestation that they could support.


So, I’m not sure what the full barrier is. But I’m curious—based on your experience, through your interviews or networking—do you feel like that’s shifting? Do you think the outdoor recreation industry is starting to wake up to the importance of this?


Meg: I think involvement is growing in the outdoor industry, but it looks different for every company. And it depends on how they represent it. For a lot of product producers, the focus is definitely more on the lifecycle of a product. They’re going for certifications like Climate Neutral or B Corp to represent ethical practices.


One thing I like about the Climate Neutral certification is that it involves projects like yours, where they’re looking for ways not only to offset their emissions but also to make them negative or improve their processes in other ways.


So, I think part of it is what you’re saying—it’s not super accessible or well-understood that it’s an option. On the flip side, I think tree planting specifically can sometimes be greenwashed. Companies might use it to cover up the fact that they don’t have super ethical production practices but point to the trees they’re planting as proof they’re doing something.


Mindy: Yeah, it definitely can. And we see the full spectrum of that—companies coming in and wanting to engage in different ways. What I tell myself, though, is that at least they’re doing something.


Tree planting on national forests does make a good impact on the entire country—and even the world. There are a lot of different models we see organizations using to try to get to net zero or offset their impact in some way.


Meg: Do you work with any of the carbon sequestering certifications?


Mindy: We don’t right now. That’s such a great question, Meg. We are seeing a lot of our corporate partners, in particular, really looking for those offsets. But because we work with the Forest Service, they’re just not there yet in providing offsets on national forests.


That’s a whole other world that I’m still at the kindergarten level of learning about. But due to the restrictions, regulations, and the way national forests are managed, they’re having a hard time figuring out what that would look like.


We do have partners, though, who do both. I’m thinking of one of our partners as an example. They’re really committed to being sustainable—Mason Louise Murray. They actually hired an outside organization to evaluate what they do.


They create a product, so they’re using and putting items out into the world. This outside organization came in and calculated their impact. As a result, they do tree planting with us and also buy offsets with a different organization.


Meg: Oh, okay.


Yeah, I like those, I guess, carbon audits or sustainability audits for companies. I think they’re useful, not only for the companies themselves but also for consumers to see what exactly is happening along the entire life cycle process, because we don’t often think of that.


Mindy: Exactly. Yeah, and I think consumers are becoming more savvy and doing that research, looking at companies. Like you mentioned earlier, when I see something like "buy one, plant one tree," it raises a red flag.


I think companies are getting that message, and we’re seeing them come in with more intention to make sure they’re doing it right so that consumers can tell that about them.


Meg: Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I’m glad to hear that. So, you talked a little bit about the steps a company can go through if they want to get involved, and I’m guessing it’s relatively similar on the website if individuals want to get involved.


There’s probably a great interface where they can just go and check that out. But how do you think the outdoor industry can start to push for more people to get involved in these types of projects?


Mindy: I love that question. I think education is key—sharing the message, not only about how easy it is but also about the expected outcomes and the impacts that replanting and reforestation create. I think removing any hurdles we can for folks who want to engage is important.


So, as you said, we try to make it super easy for an individual donor. They can click on our website, click a button, and purchase trees. We try to remove any barriers that stand in the way. Beyond that, I think it’s going to come down to education.


It’s about talking to teachers, getting curriculum into classrooms about reforestation, and getting kids outside. That’s a big push internally for us—to do more youth engagement. Because that is going to be huge for overcoming these challenges moving forward.


Meg: You talked a little bit about some of the projects going on right now that sounded really interesting, and you just mentioned some of the outcomes. So, for listeners, what are the specific benefits of reforestation?


Mindy: That’s such a great question. I’m going to refer again to our tree planting impact report. There are so many benefits, and we’ve written multiple blogs to help share them in a more digestible way.


I’m laughing because there’s one blog in front of me titled "30 Things You Should Know About Tree Planting." Even when we try to make it bite-sized, we still end up with a list of 30, which is kind of funny.


Tree planting isn’t just about aesthetics. It helps with removing carbon from the air, but it also improves wildlife habitat connectivity. It removes pollutants from the air and acts as a natural air filter.


I just saw a statistic I wanted to share: U.S. forests absorb approximately 12% of the country’s carbon emissions every year. So, if you think about how much of our forests need restoration, that’s a pretty big impact.


Meg: It is a huge impact. I didn’t realize that, because when I think of forests, I feel like there’s so little of it actually left. A lot of it has been developed for cities or agriculture or something like that, so I didn’t think the percentage would be that high.


Mindy: To help you with that visualization, think about this: our national forests cover 193 million acres of the country. Maybe that will help put it into perspective, Meg—that’s a pretty big chunk of land. So, what happens on those forests, even if you don’t live near one, impacts the air you breathe and the water you drink.


Meg: Yeah, so I'll share some of those resources from your website in the show notes. You've mentioned the website quite a few times, and I definitely recommend people go and check it out if they have a moment—especially if they own a company in the outdoor industry and want to get involved.


So, if listeners want to learn more about NFF and your many reforestation projects, what's the best way to reach out?


Mindy: Yeah, definitely check out the website—that's nationalforests.org. If you're interested in the other areas we’re working in, you can see a big list there, and you’ll be able to find my colleagues and their emails if you’re interested in a local project. I really encourage you to reach out if you want to help support those.


I think reforestation, as we talked about, Meg, is super popular right now. People love to fund it, and companies love to fund it because it’s a good, clean model to share with their customers, and I love that. But I’d also be remiss if I didn’t encourage folks to look at the bigger picture—thinking about what’s happening in their area and what work needs to be done. Maybe those projects are going to need funding as well.


So, check out the website. You can see where all the different tree planting projects are. We also have a great blog page where you can learn more about what species go where and why, as well as what animals are impacted by this work. It’s just a really cool resource to get educated on what we’re working on.


If a small business wants to get involved, as I said, it’s super easy. They can get on there and sign themselves up, or they can find my colleague Abby’s information and reach out if they have more questions. And then I’m the primary person to reach out to if folks are looking for a larger partnership. So, if you’re thinking about the larger corporate partnerships, that would be me.


Meg: Well, thank you for sharing that! I have one more question about resources on your website. If there were educators of any level, are there things on there that they would be able to use?


Mindy: Yes, there definitely are. I think the blogs I mentioned are a great place to start. And, Meg, just this last week, I had a conversation with one of my colleagues about creating some packets for teachers—so they can just download curriculum.


To be continued on that! She requested we wait until after Earth Month to begin those conversations, but I think even without that, folks can go in there, look at the blog, and find some great information.


Meg: Yeah, I was kind of envisioning some type of packet or interactive worksheet, like you were explaining. So, people can just be on the lookout for that in the future. Do you guys have social media?


Mindy: Yes! You can follow us on Instagram, and we have a TikTok channel, which makes me feel very cool. I know nothing about it, but I have smarter, hipper colleagues running that. So, you can find us on TikTok and Instagram.


I’ve mentioned a couple of times that we’re moving into April—which I’m calling Earth Month. Some people just think of Earth Day, but at the National Forest Foundation, we call it the whole month. There’s going to be some fun stuff going on on social media for that.


We’ll be sharing a lot of great resources for our new and existing partners, small businesses, and corporate partners to share out. It’s just a great time for people to get energized about the work we do and the things that need to get done on the land to help protect it.


Meg: Yes, very cool! There’s a lot of really cool work and projects happening with NFF, and I’m just so happy that you had time to chat about it.


Mindy: Yes, thank you for having me, Meg. I appreciate it!





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