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Understanding Southern New England Forests
How to promote long-term health and resilience through stewardship

Click photos for more information!

This website offers resources to learn about stewarding
southern New England woodlands

To find out more about us and our goals: check out the "About Us" and "Our Region" pages

To find out more about forests, foresters, and reasons for forest management: check out the "Forestry Explained" pages which focus on the many benefits our forests provide.

For a collection of informative materials: check out the "Resources" page

Please join us in learning more about forests in this era of climate change!

Pine management (pine seed tree harvest) emulates disturbance
Connecticut hardwood forest in fall (N. Piche).jpg

What's new?

International Oak Symposium

Science-based management for

dynamic oak forests

Oct 7-10, 2024

Knoxville TN

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Yale Forest Forum

Spring '24 speaker series

Tribal Forestry: Understanding Current Issues & Challenges in Contemporary & Traditional Management of Forested Landscapes

 

Webinars are Thursdays,

January 18 to April 25

12:00 pm-12:55 pm U.S. ET.

 

Tribes and First Nations have been forest stewards since time immemorial on the land that is currently called North America. In the face of climate change, tribes and First Nations continue to work with institutions, NGOs, and federal and state agencies to support Indigenous sovereignty and resilient forested landscapes. This webinar will focus on the current state of tribal forest management and Indigenous stewardship with a series of speakers from different tribes, universities, non-profits, and agencies. Beginning with an introduction to tribal forestry and the trust responsibilities, topics will include the history of forest stewardship on tribal lands in North America, federal laws and tribal forestry, contemporary uses of plants and wildlife stewardship, fire, conclusions from the Indian Forest Management Assessment (IFMAT), tribal co-management, and the future of tribal forestry in the face of climate change. 

This spring speaker series is co-developed and co-hosted by The Forest School, The Center for Environmental Justice at the Yale School of the Environment, and Salish Kootenai College in Montana.

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Past YFF Speaker Series

Recordings of The fall 2023 Yale Forest Forum speaker series “Understanding Climate Smart Forestry in Practice” can be found on the YFF website.

The Yale Forest Forum has also recently published reviews of three previous speaker series available at yff.yale.edu or the following links:

Recommended Reading

from the Yale School of the Environment:

Healthy Forests: 'It's never about Cutting an Individual Tree'​

The Forest School’s Mark Bradford, professor of soils and ecosystem ecology and Joseph Orefice, lecturer and director of forest and agriculture operations at Yale Forests, weigh in on what constitutes a healthy forest in this region; what role healthy forests play in climate change mitigation; and how to protect and maintain Northeastern forests in the face of climate change, pests, pathogens, and forest degradation.

Read it here

Writing to your legislator

YSAF members have found variety of reasons recently to reach out to their legislators including, but not limited...

  • Forest-related legislation has been put forward on the state level, but was found by foresters to be lacking in sufficient background knowledge underpinning the recommendations. 

  • Some foresters have shown their work to legislators and other drivers of policy to better inform them of what is going on in the woods and how a forester impacts the ecosystem. Sometimes a walk in the woods is worth a thousand words!

If you feel the need to reach out to your legislator, but you don't know where to begin, you might start with this template for a letter from a forester to their legislator:

Template Letter

To find your state representative in the House of Representatives, start here.

To find a representative in Congress, start here.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach our to us. We've reached out a few times, and taken a few folks on walks.

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