The Guild research seeks to identify how forests and forestry can resist the impacts of climate change, mitigate its effects, and adapt to changing conditions. Our 2020 synthesis report, Moving the Needle: A Review of Needs to Increase Climate Adaptation in the Forests of New England, provides an update on how forest managers are adapting forests to the changing climate today, as well as steps for overcoming barriers to forest climate adaptation.

The Guild has worked for more than a decade to establish science-based guidelines for use of forest biomass for energy. Our expertise is in the forest, so our work has focused on understanding how the forest should look after a harvest. A series of science-synthesis reports documented the importance of dead wood in Northeast, Southeast, Pacific Northwest, and Californian forests. Based on the need for snags, large downed logs, fine woody material, and other forest elements, and a review of existing guidelines, we developed biomass harvesting guidelines: 

• Forest Biomass Retention and Harvesting Guidelines for the Northeast, 
• Forest Biomass Retention and Harvesting Guidelines for the Southeast, 
• Forest Biomass Retention and Harvesting Guidelines for the Pacific Northwest

In fire-adapted forests, understanding wildfire and its impacts on ecosystems and communities is one of the central forest management challenges of our generation. The Guild’s research has touched a range of the issues as follows:  

• Our report on fuel treatments in Southwestern mixed conifer forests has helped managers plan treatments and return fire to this forest type.  
• Our work on treatment effectiveness in the wildland urban interface helped raise the bar for community wildfire protection plans.  
• In collaboration with the US Forest Service and Santa Clara Pueblo, we examined the ecological effects of slash pile burning.  
• More recently, our work has focused on reducing unplanned human caused wildfires and encouraging prescribed fire on private lands.  
• We are working with partners including The Nature Conservancy on post-fire impacts, response, and ecological trajectories 

Prescribed fire is a crucial tool for restoring forests and protecting from negative fire effects. The Guild is engaged in research to understand how to facilitate more prescribed fire, particularly for private landowners. For more information, see the report Prescribed Fire on Private Land in New Mexico. We are also working with a research team from the US Forest Service and Northern Arizona University to understand how managers can use naturally ignited wildfires to benefit forests and communities. 

The Guild is committed to supporting ecological forestry, which requires a firm scientific foundation. Often this means synthesizing existing research and presenting it in a format useful to managers and landowners. For example, we are working with partners to encourage conservation and holistic management in wetland forests as described in the report Ecological Forestry Practices for Bottomland Hardwood Forests. In some cases, economic factors determine whether or not forests are managed in an ecologically responsible manner. In Wisconsin, we studied how forest practices and range of constraints on harvesting is affecting forests and forestry and published a report.