A webinar on conversion, fragmentation, and conservation

Thursday, March 26, 11:00 a.m. – Noon MT

Listen to the recording!

In this hour-long webinar for Forest Stewards Guild members and partners we will discuss why and how to keep forest as forest and the negative effects of conversion to other land uses. By 2060 we are likely to lose 1 to 1.4 million acres of rural land per year to development and lose 24 to 38 million acres of forest. When forests are converted to agriculture, homes, offices, roads, or other development, we lose all the benefits the forest provided. Even when a forest is fragmented into smaller patches critical wildlife habitat is lost and ecosystem processes are disrupted. Keeping forest as forest helps protect the clean air, fresh water, carbon storage, economic opportunity, wildlife habitat, and all the other services forests provide. Development pressure, costs of ownership, difficulties with inter-generational land transfers, and other issues can all conspire to push some of the 11.5 million family forest owners to sell some of the 290 million acres of the nation’s forests they control.

Creative landowner outreach programs such as Women Owning Woodlands and ways of monetizing the services that forests provide such as carbon markets, provide opportunities to help keep forest as forest.

Want to learn more?

The Guild recognizes many people are dealing with the direct impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. For those stuck at home we are working to increase our distance learning opportunities. Please let us know if there are topics you’re interested in adding to our distance learning series.