2023 Loving the Land Through Working Forests

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2023 Loving the Land Through Working Forests

A field conference all about forests – threats, management practices, and ways that we can enhance their resilience and overall health. The day will be full of field-based presentations and walks on critical and emerging topics related to forest stewardship and conservation. From learning about “femelschlag” from a USDA expert, to exploring the community forest model, this will be an insightful program. Pre-registration is required and all are welcome! See below for the conference program, with new information added regularly as speakers are confirmed!


September 16 @ 8:00 am 4:00 pm

Blooming Valley Forest

17399-16009 State Rte 1043
Saegertown, PA 16433 United States
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814-694-5830
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Registration Opening Soon!

$10 – Members – $25 – Non-Members – Free for children under 7


Schedule of Events

7:30am          Registration Begins

8:15am          Welcome Remarks & Introductions

8:30am          Opening Address

9:15am          Morning Breakout Session 1    

Horse-Logging Demonstration with Discussion (Guy Dunkle)

As FSF’s Land Manager, Guy Dunkle oversees the horse crews that skid logs from FSF forests. Join Guy for a discussion of this process and the nuances that help to minimize damage to the forest during a harvest.

Additional breakout session information coming soon!

10:35am         Break

10:50am         Morning Breakout Session 2

Horse-Logging Demonstration with Discussion (Guy Dunkle)

As FSF’s Land Manager, Guy Dunkle oversees the horse crews that skid logs from FSF forests. Join Guy for a discussion of this process and the nuances that help to minimize damage to the forest during a harvest.

12:15pm               Lunch – Box Lunches will be provided

1:30pm            Keynote Session

2:30pm            Afternoon Breakout Session

Additional breakout session information coming soon!

4pm            Conference Adjourns


Meet the Presenters

Brian Donahue, PhD

Brian Donahue is Professor Emeritus of American Environmental Studies at Brandeis University, and a farm and forest policy consultant. He holds a PhD from the Brandeis program in History. He co-founded and for 12 years directed Land’s Sake, a non-profit community farm in Weston, Massachusetts, and now co-owns and manages a farm in western Massachusetts. He sits on the board of The Massachusetts Woodland Institute, and The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Donahue is author of Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town (1999), and The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord (2004). He is co-author of Wildlands and Woodlands and A New England Food Vision.

Guy Dunkle

Guy Dunkle is a Land Manager and Director with the Foundation for Sustainable Forests, with over 19 years of experience practicing sustainable forestry across northwest PA and western NY. Guy manages the FSF’s horse crews and will discuss the nuances of the job when horses are used to skid logs in a forest.

Troy Firth

Troy Firth is the Founder and President of the Foundation for Sustainable Forests, with over 45 years of experience practicing sustainable forestry and production of maple syrup. Troy is the recipient of the 2019 WeConservePA (formerly Pennsylvania Land Trust Association) Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council’s Western Pennsylvania Environmental Award. Join Troy on a walk through Blooming Valley Forest as he discusses FSF’s integrated approach to sustainable forest management.

Tara Keyser, PhD

Dr. Tara Keyser is a Research Forester and the Director of the Center for Forest Restoration and Management with the USDA FS, Southern Research Station located in Asheville, North Carolina. She has a BS in Forest Ecology and Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a MS and PhD in forest sciences from Colorado State University. Tara’s current research program focuses on the sustainable management and restoration of upland hardwood in the eastern US. She has extensive experience in implementing large, at-scale experimentally designed silvicultural studies that provide the science-based information necessary to refine existing and develop new silvicultural methods and tools in upland oak ecosystems across the eastern US.

Steven Latta, PhD

Dr. Steven Latta is the Director of Conservation and Field Research at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. A native of Michigan, he was educated at Kalamazoo College (B.A.), University of Michigan (M.S.), and University of Missouri-Columbia (Ph.D. in Avian Ecology). After graduating in 2000, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Missouri-St. Louis where he studied with Dr. Robert Ricklefs the evolution and diversification of avian malaria across Caribbean islands. He then served for four years as the Director of the Latin American Program at Point Reyes Bird Observatory in California, where he developed long-term monitoring programs in many countries, and trained hundreds of locally-based biologists and naturalists in standardized bird monitoring techniques.

Emily Wojtyna, MS

Emily Wojtyna is a biologist with a Master of Science in Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics from the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, Germany. They also hold a certificate in Environmental Studies from the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at LMU. In their free time, they love foraging and expanding their knowledge of the natural world. For their thesis, Emily utilized a chronosequence approach to conduct vegetation surveys in forest gaps created by the Foundation for Sustainable Forests and analyzed the dynamics of key habitat resources for both early-successional and mature-forest birds. For their Environmental Studies capstone project, they wrote and self-published a cookbook of local edible mushroom species titled The Amateur Forager’s Cookbook: Featuring Edible Wild Mushrooms of Western Pennsylvania. In addition to their M.S., Emily also holds a B.S. in Biological Sciences with a Chemistry minor from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated with high honors (summa cum laude).

Cassandra Ziegler, MS

Cassandra Ziegler is a Biological Sciences Ph.D. student at Duquesne University. A western Pennsylvania native, she has a BS in Biology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an MS in Environmental Science and Management from Duquesne University. Cassandra is currently studying avian diet in FSF forests.  


Thank you to our Sponsors

Gold

James and Connie Thompson
Craig and Monica Schwegman

Silver

Robert and Jane Slagter

Bronze