A unit of Lasting Forests
evolving since March 30, 1999
 
  

A Total Forest Management Plan
and Wildland Management
Decision Support System

 		 
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The Wildland Knowledge Base (WKB)

A proposed profit-making unit for one or more land owners to develop.

Providing knowledge for today's difficult land-related decisions is the work of The WKB. Having its own unique computer data-bases, it is also linked internationally to provide data analyses, bibliographies, cutting-edge access to reports, reports and briefs, unique searches, and translations in leading foreign libraries, and innovative work to gain knowledge of workers, retirees, indigenous people, and others in new ways. We move research findings into decisions and action.

In general, Lasting Forests is in business to improve the way that natural resource decisions are made. We know that there are many forces operating in any decision making system. We even see the decision itself as a system. One requirement for all decisions is that they require information. They need inputs of all kinds-anecdotes, observations, assumptions, and the "hard stuff" - data synthesized and processed so that it is useful. "Useful" to use means that it fits right into the typical, final, difficult act of deciding.

We've done research for years and have been frustrated that our results have not gone out into decisions. We've done comprehensive, sophisticated literature reviews and while they have been useful to a few people, they have never been widely used. We can now address problems and needs that we believe exist throughout the natural resource field-throughout the world. That need is for supplying the best knowledge available for the decisions being made that affect land use and natural resources, particularly the wildlands.

We operate on the basis that there is a great amount of knowledge available for natural resource decision-making. It is not being used well. One reason is that it is not processed well, but another is that its existence is not even known. The WKB, is a knowledge system about natural resource knowledge. We know where knowledge is and can help people find it, or we can find it for them. We have build unique knowledge bases and practical models to use knowledge for certain field situations.

First proposed and the design begun in 1996, the WKB exists to expedite processing observations into knowledge and knowledge into use in the wide ranging fields of land use and natural resource management. Premises upon which this enterprise, one related to many, works are:

  1. Observations can be improved.
  2. Analyses of observations can be improved and expedited.
  3. Wastes in unproductive past studies can be reduced
  4. Vast knowledge about natural resources and land is now available and needs to be used.
  5. People are now swamped by data and information and methods are available to overcome this problem.
  6. Improving processing of data and information is as important as gaining more observations or data.
  7. Much knowledge exists in other countries.
  8. Science is only one pathway to knowledge; there are others, especially when time, funds, labor, or available energy are limited to species or conditions endangered.
  9. Expert knowledge is a treasured resource.
  10. Knowledge can often be captured in numbers or equations expressing relations and used in models.
  11. Knowledge is often adequate. No more studies will improve the certainty of a statement because systems are naturally variable.
  12. Using knowledge is part of the knowledge-building process. Use helps in testing (invalidation) and correcting current perceptions of truth.
  13. Knowledge can be improved if spatial and temporal factors are used with it.

We are in the knowledge business. We have unique knowledge bases, unique collections, proprietary knowledge of other bases, access to vast information resources, and efficient procedures. We are dedicated natural resource specialists working with equally dedicated information system scientists and others to bring knowledge cost-effectively into use on the land. The WKB is devoted to use of knowledge gained in the past to improve natural resource and related wildland decisions. Fully aware that all natural resource decisions are not made based only on knowledge about the system and consequences of a decision, the staff of The WKB is committed to increasing the role of knowledge in decisions. Without knowledge, other forces can have a strong hand. We are committed to providing knowledge a rightful place at the decision table.

We offer services for a price. We have massive databases, access to many data bases, and a well-trained staff. We can provide in a timely fashion comprehensive reports in select areas of natural resources and the wildland topics. These are well-written summary and analytical reports by our superior staff. The reports are backed up by computer-aided literature searches, access to a large private library, access to international and national library sources and the internet, and in some cases, to interviews of experts and folk authorities.

We have access to a modern university library, home of the internationally known VTLS (Virginia Tech Library System) that has virtually replaced the card catalog and allowed improved access to library resources around the world.

We provide:

  1. An expert registry
  2. A library research group to provide rapid library studies
  3. Bibliographies on any natural resource topic
  4. Access to fauna databases
  5. Access to plant databases
  6. Key source discoveries, article finding, and delivery
  7. Data processing-converting data to information by modern computer-based procedures.
  8. Access to the Lasting Forests library
  9. Access to an expert knowledge base
  10. Access to maps (from Landsat, SPOT, and select areas and custom-made geographic information system maps)
  11. Access to photographs, movie, and TV clips (e.g., for multimedia work)
  12. Unique electronic "publications" which we call "chunks."
We can pump data into our hand-held computer with a global positioning satellite unit in the forest stand (e.g., using Two-Dog software) via cellular phone to a data receiver, then directly into a statistical analysis package. The results, now in a file, are fed into a text file which in final form with color maps, goes over the internet to a corporate headquarters where a land sale decision is being made.

This unusual new flow of knowledge (field observation to decision in a few hours) is of interest and we can and will gladly provide such services, but we have many other more well-known capabilities for rich returns from the world's knowledge stores because we have:

The Market

The services we provide are intended to improve natural resource decisions.

We typically serve:

Our work is done in 3-stages. It is rare that customers appreciate how much time they personally spend in literature searches or, frankly, the worth of their personal time. (If a person making $28,000 a year works for 200 days a year, they have to be worth at least $17.50 per hours.) A week in the library can amount to high costs to an agency or to a client. Ability to cut costs or outbid a competitor makes use of The WKB services essential. The 3 stages are needed because we need to show clients what they get for fees charged at each level. Clients you need to see what they get (and assess how much more they need); and they need to judge the potentials of our group to meet their real needs (which only they can appraise.)

We have a base charge. This pays for administration, analysis of the request, and a preliminary search. (We may find nothing, but clients are told where we looked and that in itself is worth a lot to the serious worker-and risk taker.) We then estimate the work and costs likely in each level. This is no more than rational bidding, seeking to meet each client's needs rapidly at reasonable costs. (Expedited service including fax, e-mail, and courier service is available.) In some cases, only level 1 or 2 service will be suggested based on the apparent knowledge available.

A WKB team will conduct interviews and several unique Delphi-based analyses (expert consultations toward consensus) are also available.

Our services are discrete and we follow a strict code of privacy and confidentiality. Our staff are pledged to support client interests and to non-disclosure, except as permitted.

Some of our studies over time are published as Lasting Forests documents. When a request is made and it can be answered by an in-house document already available, this document will be supplied at cost and no other fees will be charged. Our services increase. Savings in costs of searches previously made are passed on to customers. We can arrange for major tax deductions and gift benefits for personal natural resource libraries that are contributed to the Virginia Tech Foundation for use in the College of Natural Resources and in Lasting Forests.

Suggestions for Customers

Here are some ideas about what we can do together with clients ...

Just write or call. Much work needs to be personally and carefully done to meet your needs. Have an idea? We'll try to help.

Call us for a bibliography, for example, on Lyme disease.

Subscribe to WKB's Seek/Find service. You subscribe, fill in a list of topics on which you work and we'll alert you to new articles in your field(s). You may then order the article(s) and we'll fax, e-mail, or send them by conventional mail.

Order a report on a topic of interest, for example, the characteristics of warm-season grasses.

Clear the file. Convert that old data set into some useful statistics. We'll enter data, analyze it appropriately, and give you a report. You can write it up. We'll also do the front-end "literature review," almost impossible for the person in the remote field station.

Let us show you how to use the wildlife information systems that now exist in 20 states. We can help any state or agency create a wildlife information system, or The WKB can provide a cost-effective alternative: a privatized central service for individuals or several states operating in a consortium.

Need an expert(s) on Topic X? We'll send you a list that you can contact for availability, fees, and ability to meet your specific needs.

Use our unique knowledge bases on:

We have excellent contacts for local work in India, People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Nigeria, Senegal and Columbia.

We customize our services to clients' needs. The range of services that we can supply are:

  1. Providing assistance in study design
  2. Performing statistical analyses
  3. Preparing computer maps
  4. Cleaning vertical paper files - moving the thousands of dollars spent on studies into notes and reports
  5. Preparing select bibliographies
  6. Keeping you up-to-date on publications in your area (lists or actual article reprints)
  7. Preparing literature reviews for research proposals or projects
  8. Preparing timely background reports for court cases
  9. Answering site-specific questions (millions) about wildlife
  10. Preparing a book on a select topic as a memorial to a loved one or as a grand gift to a family member or corporate leader
  11. Gaining literature and translations from select other countries
  12. Putting you in touch with world-class experts on a topic
  13. Delivering comprehensive environmental plans from The Trevey, documents that synthesize knowledge
  14. Preparing unique area-specific computer maps
  15. Preparing indigenous-people and folk-knowledge surveys
  16. Developing computer models of managerial relevance.
We do little work in chemistry, physics, or the arts. Our work in law is limited to those laws relevant to a natural resource topic, rarely case law. See #8. Our interests and abilities span those of a large modern Land-Grant University. We welcome inquiries.

We can provide electronic delivery. We guarantee responses and have unique crisis teams to prepare materials in unbelievable periods.

We are a for-profit group but we are operating to improve decisions, to reduce the waste, and "grief", and costs of hours and hours spent in often ineffective library searches. We're in the business to reduce duplication, to increase effective replication of studies, to assist in directing future studies, to prevent the loss of data and information gained at such high costs.

We are growing in our capabilities in developing formal"expert systems" and in artificial intelligence. We operate with EXSYS expert system shell and two other types of software with expert system configuration, CRITERIUM, and AskSam.

We invite donations of library resources from natural resource specialists to our growing knowledge base. We invite cooperative involvement of companies developing improved library and information equipment and services. We can be a testing and prototype development center. We are proud that our library searches, our specially-trained staff, are usually enrolled in a university program in natural resources. They benefit financially to assist in the high costs of their education, they learn, and also become more competent employees for future corporations and agencies.

Knowledge is Power

Market Analysis

Rapid changes in agency structure and reduced research funding has created new needs for rapid delivery of information.

Libraries under financial pressure need use-rates as part of their accountability documents.

Wildland enterprises arise and competition forces them to seek new or different sources of information.

The U.S. Forest Service Information Center at Athens, Georgia, has more requests than they can meet(1998) and are willing to relay some of these to The WKB.

Several corporations have their own library service centers but agencies have been unable to stabilize the libraries of the size, diversity, and complexity of The WKB to meet wildland resource personnel needs. There are needs for information that are not being met, so the "need" is ignored. The market appears to be large, but unknown, because of the impediments in the past and the electronic media now available for delivery.

Marketing and Sales Activities

The clients have been listed above. The advertising will be:

Operations and Organization

Lasting Forests hires a manager. University Library faculty (two have expressed interest) serve as consultants. University students and others are employed as searchers/writers. A distinctive team procedure has been developed and is used with standard formats, citations, word processing, file management, and editing. Progressively lowered costs are expected as a system of effective library searching, use, note-taking, scanning, and processing is developed. Reports are reviewed for clarity and format by a senior staff member before being sent.

Marketing is by Lasting Forests marketing group until expansion within The WKB is possible.

Other Resources:
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This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.