UCSC arts research center awarded $250,000 grant from U.S. Forest Service

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Joshua Harrison (left), with Digital Arts and New Media research professor Newton Harrison, founder/director of the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure, a research center based in the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz (Photo by Maureen Dixon Harrison)The U.S. Forest Service has awarded a $250,000 grant to the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure, a research center based in the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz.Founded by Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, research professors in UCSC’s Digital Arts and New Media Program (DANM), the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure brings together artists and scientists to design ecosystem-adaptation projects in critical regions around the world to respond to climate change.The center will use the grant to study the economic feasibility of developing an innovative forest industry cluster near Reno, Nevada.Titled the “Western Nevada and Central Sierra Nevada of California Regional Wood Utilization Team,” the project will estimate the supply of wood biomass in the area east of the central Sierra crest and in western Nevada, and assess the possibility of producing wood products from that supply.Funds will be used to support the creation and management of a special committee, led by Joshua Harrison, co-director of the UCSC center. The multidisciplinary, bi-state team will then cultivate local businesses in the area that can generate useful products from wood biomass.The aim of the grant--part of $8.3 million in distributed funds just announced by the U.S. Forest Service--is to stimulate the removal of hazardous fuels from forests to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires and promote forest health, while at the same time spurring the economic development of rural communities. “Our first step is to get a much better estimate of the supply--the amount of timber by species along with brush and other biomass available in the WUT ( ...

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