Tending Your Forest: Author Q&A

Co-authored by Paul Catanzaro, Professor & State Extension Forrester and Co-Director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Family Forest Research Center, the book is geared towards family forest owners, who are the primary forest landowners in the United States. The Rubenstein School communications team sat down with Professor D’Amato to learn more about the book and how his teaching and work at UVM impacted the writing process.

What inspired you to write this book?

I’ve been very fortunate to have a long-term professional partnership and friendship with the book’s coauthor, Paul Catanzaro, who is a forestry professor at UMass and their state extension forester. We both have been long-time proponents for ecological forestry, but felt there was limited guidance for family forest landowners that translated those principles into the contexts within which they interact with their forests or make decisions. Given that family forests are the predominant ownership type in our region and many others, our hope with this book is that it can guide stewardship in those areas towards more balanced, ecologically grounded approaches.

How has your role as a professor and educator impacted your approach to forest management education and advocacy?

I always tell my students on the first day of my silviculture class that their forestry education is a time capsule that reflects the current issues and thinking of the day. When I graduated forestry school 26 years ago, ecological forestry and associated objectives around managing for biodiversity were the dominant topics, whereas sustainable timber production predominated in the decades before me, and now, adaptation to global change and sustaining diverse values and services are what’s packaged in their capsules. My reason for sharing that time capsule perspective is that forests and what people rely on them for or expect from them are always changing, so it’s critical to encourage students to be lifelong learners, careful observers, and cognizant of the ever-evolving relationship we have with forests. I very much view our students as ambassadors for the best forestry has to offer the future, both in their technical training, but also in their broader social and cultural awareness around the many ways people connect with and rely on forests. Yes, society still needs wood, and our role is to make sure that we can sustain that amazing resource for future generations, but our primary reason for being in this field is we love the forest and want to make sure it is supported and honored for all we and others rely on it for.

The subtitle of your book specifies that your guide is geared toward the Eastern and Central United States. Can you explain, for the uninitiated, why these two regions might have different best practices than say, the Pacific Northwest, or the Rockies?

There’s a lot of variety in the forests across the region covered by our book, but many are dominated by broadleaved deciduous species (e.g., oaks, maples, birches, hickories) and owned by family forest owners. Outside of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan and occasionally the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, large wildfires really aren’t a major dynamic for the forests covered in our book and instead we have lots of fine scale to moderate disturbances from wind, insects, pathogens, and ice. In contrast, the other regions you mentioned are very much dominated by conifer species (e.g., Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, Sitka spruce) and public ownerships like state and National Forests are more common. Fire in various forms from frequent surface fires to stand-replacing events are far more common, and the scales of management and disturbance are often greater. At a base level, when we practice ecological forestry, we are trying to emulate aspects of the natural functioning of forests for a given region or locale, so we’re using an understanding of how disturbance and other processes affected forests to guide our stewardship. As a result, the best practices for Douglas-fir forests in Oregon are going to be far different than a sugar maple-dominated forest in Vermont. That variety is part of the fun of forestry, and it relies on a deep appreciation and knowledge of how a given forest functions and the ways we can best support it, even when we are removing trees for wood products and other values.

Were there any specific experiences you had while teaching classes/mentoring students/working with Vermonters that inspired the book or sections of it?

Several of the sections of the book build from outreach pamphlets that Paul and I wrote to address issues and topics that were becoming areas of emphasis for foresters and landowners in the region (e.g., managing for resilience, restoring old growth, understanding forest carbon). There was plenty of technical guidance and scientific literature out there on those topics, but we observed little that was either localized to our region or translated to the core landowners making decisions across much of our landscapes. This book expands from the inspiration for those pamphlets and is motivated by a desire to present a different model of forestry to that landowner audience than what is often portrayed by more timber-focused landowner outreach or by special interest groups that assume we’re still teaching forestry like it was done in the 1960s.

What’s one thing you wish every landowner in Vermont knew about forest stewardship?

Stewardship really is about supporting the forest to ensure the gifts it provides and species it supports continue into the future. It’s a relationship of care that recognizes when support is best given via passive activities like protecting land from future development or designating a reserve around a unique ecological area or by more active engagement, including harvesting trees to increase songbird habitat or increase the prevalence of non-host species to reduce vulnerability to an introduced insect. In looking at the ecological functions and values a given landowner relies upon their forest for, their stewardship should be guided by when that forest needs help to sustain or deliver those functions and values.

What advice would you offer to a landowner who is considering these issues of management for the first time?

When we are making decisions about what to do in a forest (or not), the most important place to start from in that decision is a deep understanding of the ecology of the forest and the primary reasons why a landowner values owning that forest. Given the former requires a bit more technical expertise, we always recommend that landowners connect with a forester to learn more about their land, and in Vermont, a County Forester would be a great first place to start. Nevertheless, deciding to engage in the stewardship of a forest is a big decision, so like other momentous decisions, it’s also helpful to seek guidance and perspective from others who share similar values. In the case of forest stewardship, that can be family and friends, a neighbor, or a particular conservation organization that might be able to share what their experiences were like working with a particular forester or having some trees harvested on their property. The key is to feel confident you are doing the right thing for the forest, as well as for the people and other species who derive different values from it.

What advice do you have for students and scholars looking to publish for a wider audience? 

One of the best parts of my job, beyond teaching, is being able to get out in the woods to learn from foresters and other professionals. Part of that learning surrounds their approach to forest stewardship, which I take back into the classroom and research, but some of that learning focuses on how foresters interpret and use new knowledge or research to guide their work. Those observations are very valuable to me when thinking about how to best communicate findings or ideas to ensure they are used beyond the walls of UVM and certainly have affected my approach to writing for managers and landowner audiences. It’s always said that you should know your audience, so I’d recommend spending as much time doing that to ensure you work has the intended impact.