Northeast Forest Resources Extension Council meeting

(NeFREC)

Dec. 3 & 4, Haddam, CT

Every year in early December, extension foresters from the USFS northeast forest service region (MN to the East coast, and south to WV) gather to discuss hot topics and areas of concern in forestry outreach, but most importantly, to steal good ideas from the successful programs of their colleagues! While traditionally held at Grey Towers, the Pennsylvania family home of Gifford Pinchot (chief of the US Forest Service upon its creation) the meeting has roamed since the COVID years. The 2024 meeting was hosted by Tom Worthley, extension forester at UConn, at the Extension Center in Haddam, CT. Many states were represented, some in person and some remote. The following are some highlights shared from various corners of the northeast. (more…)

The following document was prepared by the Yankee Division of the Society of American Foresters (SAF) in 2020, in response to public sentiment and misinformation suggesting that the cutting of trees was not in keeping with goals of mitigating climate change and sequestering/storing terrestrial carbon. Sounds forestry practices are in fact some of the best tools we have to maintain healthy forests and their function as mitigators of the impacts of climate change and collectors of carbon. It is also the means by which we can preserve biodiversity and provide sustainable and renewable products (timber, maple syrup, etc.) while also meeting carbon and climate goals.

The entirety of SAF has gone on to adopt similar positions, as collected on their website. (more…)

The Slow Storm: Tree and Stand Mortality in CT during 2018 from drought, insects and diseases.

by Thomas E Worthley, UConn Associate Extension Professor, Forestry

During the last decade most tree-related front-page-newsworthy stories resulted from disruptions related to severe storm events that caused power outages, transportation disruptions and property damage that folks will long remember. Such events are sudden and dramatic, are certainly newsworthy and result in visible changes in our landscapes and neighborhoods. Less sudden and dramatic, but perhaps more intensively and extensively altering our wooded landscapes visibly and ecologically, is the slow and relentless “perfect storm” of weather patterns, invasive insects and opportunistic pathogens the last few years causing severe and extensive tree mortality, most noticeably in eastern CT. We are witnessing a landscape-scale change in forest species composition, age structure and stand condition such as not been experienced in a generation. (more…)