Ecological Forestry for a Changed and Changing World
Big Picture Theatre, 48 Carroll RD, Waitsfield, VT
Thursday, October 19, 6:30 PM
What does it mean to love a forest?
by Ethan Tapper, Chittenden County Forester I'm leading a couple events this week: a talk at the Big Picture theatre in Waitsfield on Thursday evening and a walk with the Vermont Land Trust at the Catamount Community Forest on Saturday. I hope to see you there! Details are below.
My article for this month is called What is an Old-Growth Forest? You can read it here.
Vermont’s forests are highly-altered -- young, simple and degraded, missing many critical habitats, features and functions that they need to stay healthy, abundant and resilient as they head into an uncertain future. As we consider what it means to care for forests at this moment in time, it is clear that radical action is needed to protect their biodiversity and their ecological integrity, and to help them build resilience and adaptability as they prepare for the pervasive influence of global change.
Ecological forestry is a reimagined vision of forest management – one that seeks to manage forests “like they manage themselves.” Ecological forestry is regenerative in nature, using forest management to emulate natural disturbances and natural processes, to help forests become more diverse, complex and resilient and even to make Vermont’s young, simple forests more like old growth forests. It does so while also providing local, renewable resources – wood – which have global biodiversity and human-rights benefits.
Ethan will give a one-hour talk about what ecological forestry is, what it looks like, and why it is so crucial at this moment in time.
Learn more here.
Restoring Old Growth Characteristics at the Catamount Community Forest
w/ the Vermont Land Trust
Catamount Community Forest, 553 Governor Chittenden RD, Williston
Saturday, October 21, 1:00 - 3:00 PM
Join us to visit the site of a recently completed forest management project at the Catamount Community Forest. This project involves managing a portion of the CCF for old growth characteristics—creating the habitats and the qualities of an old growth forest centuries sooner than they would naturally occur—and is part of a national research project studying how to manage forests in a changing climate.
We’ll explore effective ways to manage our forests for resilience and adaptability while also achieving other goals, including biodiversity conservation, forest health, renewable resources, and bird habitat.
Register here.
Chittenden County Forester, 111 West St, Essex JCT, VT 05452-4660