Innovation is the key to success in today’s world, with changes in technology, natural and human-caused changes in the environment and sociopolitical change taking place at an accelerating pace. To innovate successfully, we must take advantage of the natural resource sciences. Millions of dollars can be lost while research is waiting to be published researchers end up doing things that are not effective, or wasting opportunities to do things that are. I suggest that we utilize the new communications technology in order to communicate results in a timely manner, conduct training and reduce instances in which scientists reinvent the wheel.
To use silviculture as an example, I suggest development of a statewide or nationwide computer network (call it Silvanet) on which researchers at all levels could exchange information. The network would have four sections: reports, ongoing work, ideas and notes on meetings.
Reports, the equivalent of today’s scientific papers, would ...
