Department of Forestry Forest Carbon and Climate Program

2021 USDA NIFA Regional Expert Engagement Workshops

As climate change impacts our planet, our communities, and livelihoods, corporations and professionals from diverse sectors are finding they need to learn more about carbon mitigation strategies and natural climate solutions. Forests provide myriad opportunities to increase carbon capture and storage on the landscape, while providing diverse ecosystem services, such as erosion control and water filtration, which further buffer negative impacts of a changing climate.

To address the needs of professionals seeking to learn more about forests as a natural climate solution, the Forest Carbon and Climate Program (FCCP) developed and launched an interactive online professional development short course, Understanding Forest Carbon Management (UFCM) in 2019. The course is designed to provide learners with a foundational knowledge base on a wide array of topics surrounding forest-carbon interactions & climate change and has hosted over 200 participants from 19 countries.

With UFCM being broadly applicable, FCCP sought to strengthen its relevance to working forestry professionals and landowners by adding tailored, regionally-focused modules that highlight climate change impacts and adaptive management practices in various geographies. In 2019, we received additional funding from USDA NIFA to create supplemental modules for three U.S. regions: Pacific Northwest, Northeast US, and Southeast US. 

Although the structural basis of our content development is founded in reviewing current scientific literature, we actively seek guidance, input, and support from strategic regional partners to ground truth our findings and communicate the right content with the right level of detail to make it relevant and meaningful to those with forestry backgrounds, yet still approachable and comprehensible to those who lack a formal natural resources education or experience (i.e., policy makers). Engagement activities with regional partners include a survey, course content review and beta testing, as well as workshops with diverse forestry professionals from each region.

Central to this, we facilitated engagement workshops for each region, bringing together diverse sectors and voices including natural resource agency personnel from the U.S. Forest Service and state Department of Natural Resources (DNRs), industry actors such as timber corporations, members of academia including forestry extension agents, minority groups and representatives, and non-governmental organizations such as American Forests and The Nature Conservancy.

In these 3-hour workshops, we introduced participants to the e-learning development, providing background on purpose, goals, and intended audience. We shared examples of initial drafted content and facilitated valuable discussions to inform refinements and revisions. Throughout the workshops, participants responded to live survey questions and polls to guide key focal areas, such as ranking major climate-related forest threats, listing specific tree species of concern and those most likely to expand under climate change, and providing feedback on framing of adaptive management strategies and approaches.

At the end of the workshop, we asked to participants to share overarching thoughts and concerns, tips to increase regional relevance, and suggested contacts for expert networks and organizations who could further contribute to our development efforts or benefit from taking this type of course. These workshops provided us with invaluable insight, and it was an enriching experience to learn of the unique needs, perspectives, and concerns across forestry sectors in the three regions.

Screenshot of polling results from one of the regional engagement workshops. Forestry experts were asked to rank major climate-related threats to forests based on their own experiences and perspectives. This feedback was used to guide content development and ensure that key regional issues were highlighted in greater depth.

Many inter-regional differences were linked to regional drivers of forest character. For example, in the Pacific Northwest, management prescriptions are primarily linked to site conditions, ecology, and species successional trends as opposed to cover type. This means that a Douglas-fir stand growing on a moist site will require different management treatments than Douglas-fir on a dry site because of variations in character, growth, and its role in species successional trends. Therefore, we structured our content to highlight key differences across major PNW ecological forest types: temperate rainforests, inland moist forests, dry forests, and cold/subalpine forests. Whereas, for the Northeast and Southeast regions whose geographic range was much broader, we highlighted key differences across major subregional zones with variable climate traits. In this way, we were able to capture variations in climate change impacts to forests on a narrower scale, and link those impacts to the key forest types found in each subregion.

Subregional boundaries and labels used to characterize variations in forests and climate change impacts within the Northeast and Southeast U.S.

Another noteworthy difference we learned from these regional workshops were the variations in perspectives and key topics of concern. The forestry sector in the Pacific Northwest has had a long history of struggling to balance environmental stewardship with economic objectives. This prompted participants to voice concerns over framing of content related to current and historical forest management practices and policies, and particularly over content related to old growth forests. In the Southeast where there is more cultural politicization over climate change and its impacts, terminology was a concern for audience buy-in. For example, it was recommended that terms such as “carbon sequestration” could be swapped with “biomass accumulation” to make the content more useful for communication with landowners. In contrast, there were few framing issues raised in the Northeast, as participants expressed that many in the region are familiar and comfortable discussing climate change and using related terminology.

As we advance the development of this regional content on forests, carbon, and climate change, we continue to engage our networks of regional experts via content reviews and surveys. Gaining input from diverse forestry voices on climate-related risks, opportunities, and adaptive management interventions has enhanced our ability to tailor these courses to the needs and interests of regional stakeholders and craft an online learning experience that is both effective and practical for broad audiences. FCCP gratefully acknowledges the regional experts who participated in these workshops for providing their time, unique perspectives, and guidance to support this effort.

To learn more about this project, see the webpage here.

To learn more about FCCP professional training offered please see our webpage here.

FCCP gratefully acknowledges USDA NIFA for providing financial support to carry out this work.