Tools for Engaging Landowners Effectively (TELE) is a project of the Sustaining Family Forests Initiative (SFFI), an ad hoc collaboration of universities, government agencies, industry, conservation organizations, certification systems, and landowners. 

America’s family lands present our biggest conservation challenge.  Nearly one million acres of our forests are being converted to development each year.  Forty-one percent of the forest in the contiguous United States is owned by families, and it is the forest most at risk of being fragmented and converted for development. Decisions made by 10 million family forest owners collectively enhance or degrade the landscape.  How they manage their forests and whether or not they convert them to other uses is of significant public interest. Reasonable estimates are that only 20-30% of them are being served by current programs aimed at conservation and sustainable forest management.

The goal of this multiyear project is to provide a practical set of tools to help conservation and forestry professionals reach more landowners with effective stewardship messages and develop programs that serve the needs and values of the landowners.  Landowners and natural resource professionals have been intimately involved in all phases of the project. We strongly believe that our work must be useful to a wide array of organizations and agencies, and grounded in solid data about the landowners.  

We are immensely grateful to the many foundations, corporations and government agencies who have so generously funded this work. 

About the Sustaining Family Forests Initiative

SFFI was organized in 2004 to gain comprehensive knowledge about family forest owners in the United States—credible, useful information for those who wish to create a climate in which forest owners can easily find the information and services they desire to help them conserve and manage their land.  

SFFI is managed jointly by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the USDA Forest Service Family Forest Research Center, along with the American Forest Foundation, MeadWestvaco, and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, with an advisory group of over 40 organizations representing diverse sectors.

The objectives of the Sustaining Family Forests Initiative are to:

• Serve as a wide-ranging information resource about America’s family forest owners for government agencies, university extension educators, consulting foresters, landowner associations, land trusts, conservation and biodiversity NGOs, sustainable forestry certifiers, and the forest products industry;
• Provide tools for enhanced outreach to woodland landowners;  and
• Aid a broad spectrum of organizations to be more strategic in meeting education and service goals with limited resources.  

For more information please visit www.sustainingfamilyforests.org