Registration closed ($25, dinner and snacks included)
Agenda to download

November 6: 11:00 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. with optional social and provided dinner from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

November 7 Field Tour: 8:00 a.m. – 4:45 p.m.

This event qualifies for 9 SAF CFE category 1 credits.

Meet day 1 at: the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries Headquarters: 2000 Quail Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70808 (Joe L. Herring room).

Lodging: $100, on your own, first come, first served in a room block held at the Crowne Plaza. To make reservations, call 225-930-0130 or visit online at: www.crowneplaza.com/execcenterbtr. The group code is FSG.

Background

In November 2018, the Guild brought together experts from the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) and the Atlantic Coastal Plain (ACP) in Brunswick, GA to learn about the differences in forest management between these two geographies based on social, ecologic, and economic factors. This event welcomed over thirty individuals and led to broad connections and impact throughout the South. Learn more through our final report and story map.  

Southeastern bottomland hardwood forests provision critically important, and highly valued, ecosystem services including biodiversity, flood protection, carbon storage, recreation, and clean/clear water. Land conversion, ditching, heavy bedding/furrowing, development, fragmentation, and narrowly‐focused forest management threaten their ability to sustain flows of such integral ecosystem services long‐term. Responsible forest management of bottomland forests can be done in ways that maintain or enhance their ecological integrity and stability, while simultaneously generating income and supplying wood products.  

The event

This was our 2nd Bottomland Hardwood Learning Exchange in partnership with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries and The Nature Conservancy. The field-based learning exchange leveraged our previous efforts by bringing together forest landowners and resource professionals from across the South to understand wildlife forestry practices in the LMAV. An emphasis was placed on how robust forest product markets, low-impact harvesting equipment, and selection system silviculture can play an integral role in meeting wildlife habitat improvement goals for forest interior birds. We also focused on connecting family forest landowners to resources available to better steward their woodland. Through this event we hope to improve the management and conservation of bottomland forests across the South and illustrate opportunities to meet diverse social values. In 2020, the Guild will be working with our local partners to host a series of wildlife forestry workshops for private forest landowners and natural resource professionals in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. More details are coming soon about this future work.

The event included a ½-day indoor session of presentations and discussions, followed by a full 1-day field tour to state and private lands. See the agenda linked above for details.