Harvard Forest Convenes LTER Forest Stakeholder Dialogues in DC

On February 28 and March 2, Harvard Forest project leaders David Foster and Kathy Lambert joined representatives from the US Forest Service and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington DC to host a series of science and policy dialogues for a new research project entitled "Future Scenarios of Forest Change." These 2-hour conversations bring together leading scientists, conservationists, landowner groups, and federal agency officials to exchange ideas about the major drivers of future forest change. The Future Scenarios research initiative will use these dialogues along with scenario planning, modeling, and conservation & policy analysis to expand our understanding of the regional impact of land use and climate change on forests. The DC meetings are sponsored in part by the Long-Term Ecological Research Network (www.lternet.edu) and co-hosted with the National Council for Science and the Environment and the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment.

An overview of the Future Scenarios project can be found in this talk from the March LTER mini-symposium in DC.