Caz resident’s national, international policy work recognized
Dr. Robert E. Malmsheimer, a professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), was awarded the Sir William Schlich Memorial Award by the Society of American Foresters (SAF). This preeminent U.S. award in the field of forest policy was presented to Malmsheimer for his work in the fields of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service litigation, and forest management and climate change.
The Schlich Award recognizes broad and outstanding contributions to the field of forestry with emphasis on forest policy and national or international activities. It is named for Sir William Schlich, a 19th century English forester, who is remembered for his efforts to advance forestry. Past award winners include President Franklin D. Roosevelt, five former chiefs of the USDA Forest Service and ESF alumni Robert E. Wolf.
Malmsheimer, of Cazenovia, teaches in ESF’s Department of Forest and Natural Resources management, holds a Ph.D. in forest resource management from ESF, a juris doctor for Union University’s Albany Law School and a BS in landscape architecture from ESF. His research focuses on how the laws and the legal system affect forest resources management.
Malmsheimer is a widely sought after speaker and expert in his field. Over the course of his career, he has testified before multiple congressional subcommittees and twice made presentations in the United Kingdom Parliament’s House of Commons. He has briefed more than 60 U.S. House of Representatives’ and U.S. Senators’ staffs on Forest Service litigation, forest management and climate change, forest carbon accounting and numerous other issues.
Malmsheimer has briefed U.S. administration leaders and offices, such as the chief of the Forest Service, the undersecretary of Agriculture for National Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency, the White House Council of Environmental Quality, and the Department of Agriculture’s Chief Economist Office on forest policy issues. In addition, he has briefed legislative and administrative policymakers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and European Parliament, as well as members of U.S.’s European Union and UK embassies on biogenic forest carbon accounting issues.
Since 2006, Malmsheimer has led, or has been an integral part of, four comprehensive compilations, analyses and summaries of the peer-reviewed literature of the interactions of forest management and climate change. From 2006 to 2007, he co-chaired a team that produced the first comprehensive summary of how forests and forestry can both prevent and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and simultaneously provide essential environmental, social and economic benefits. In 2010, he chaired the SAF task force on “Forest Climate Change Offsets and the Use of Forest Biomass for Energy,” which was published in 2011 as a special issue of the Journal of Forestry, titled “Managing Forests because Carbon Matters: Integrating Energy, Products, and Land Management Policy.”
From 2013 to 2014, Malmsheimer was part of the eight-person team that authored the “Forests” chapter in “Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment.” For the past four years, Malmsheimer has been part of SAF’s Carbon Accounting Response Team, which recently published an article examining “Forest Carbon Accounting Considerations in U.S. Bioenergy Policy.”
