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February 20, 2020

Harvard Forest Plays Key Role in Regional Food Summit

Screenshot from Food Summit livestream showing speaker Brian Donahue at podium at left and report cover of New England Food Vision at right, which shows a diverse group of young people harvesting garden food

In the months leading up to the New England Food, Farms, Fisheries, and Forests summit on February 19, HF Director David Foster and HF Research Associate Brian Donahue met regularly with with leaders at Harvard, the American Farmland Trust, and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare to create a first-of-its-scale program that would explore food production, health, sustainability, and social justice with

January 21, 2020

Study: Climate (Not Humans) Shaped Early Forests of New England

Openland and stone wall

A new study in the journal Nature Sustainability overturns long-held interpretations of the role humans played in shaping the American landscape before European colonization. The findings give new insight into the rationale and approaches for managing some of the most biodiverse landscapes in the eastern U.S.

December 19, 2019

Climate Teaching Tool Co-Produced by Local Teacher & HF Scientist

screenshot of Data Nugget website showing title (A window into a tree's world) and image of scientist Neil Pederson extracting a tree-ring core from the trunk of an evergreen tree

A new teaching tool for middle, high school, and university classrooms guides students in using Harvard Forest tree-ring data to answer questions about local climate change. The lesson plan was produced by Elicia Andrews, a teacher at Quabbin Regional High School in Barre, MA, who also participates in the Harvard Forest Schoolyard Ecology Program. Andrews was supported in

December 16, 2019

Study: Invasive Insects Increase Likelihood of Logging on Private Land

close-up on the ends of 20 cut logs stacked in winter snow, some with tracking numbers spraypainted on them

A new study in the journal People and Nature, led by a team of scientists from Harvard Forest, UMass, and Duke University, surveyed hundreds of forest landowners in New England and found that future invasive insect outbreaks could increase the likelihood of forest harvest on private land. 

Based on survey responses, the team grouped landowners into three types, characterizing their

December 1, 2019

Harvard's "Wired Woods" Featured in Resilient Forest Series

A research tram on cables glides over the top of dense, green vegetation in a recently clear-cut forest

Harvard Forest land and research is the newest focus of a year-long multimedia series on resilient forests by Northern Woodlands.

Listen as Harvard Forest Senior Ecologist and Deputy Director Aaron Ellison walks radio producer Erica Heilman through our "wired woods," and up to the top of our 92' research tower, discussing how scientists use experimental forests to measure change over time.

October 11, 2019

Harvard Forest Co-Presents Award for Academic Conservation Excellence

In a special event today, the Harvard Forest, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and Highstead Foundation, along with their partners in Academics for Land Protection in New England (ALPINE), recognized the University of Massachusetts Amherst with the Charles H.W. Foster Award for Academic Leadership in Land Conservation.

The event also honored the high-impact career of longtime UMass

October 3, 2019

NYT Op-Ed Poses Wood Building & Forest Conservation as Climate Solutions

Students standing in wooden building.

An op-ed in the New York Times, co-authored by Harvard Forest director David Foster, points to new forest management standards, increases in wood building projects, and protection of existing forests from development as untapped climate solutions in New England and around the world.

The piece was written with colleagues Frank Lowenstein from the New England Forestry Foundation and

October 19, 2019

Bullard Spotlight: Robin Sears on Small-Scale Farm-Forestry Systems in Peru

Bullard Fellow Robin Sears stands on a mountaintop in southern Peru, with rocks in the foreground and grass and forest-covered mountains in the distance

Bullard Fellow Robin Sears spent eight months at Harvard Forest in 2018-2019 working on three projects: a research manuscript on the value chain for timber from small-scale farm-forestry systems in the Peruvian Amazon; data analysis and production of popular and scientific communication deliverables on the ecological and social dimensions of high-elevation remnant Polylepis forest patches in the Peruvian Andes; and

September 1, 2019

Museum Event to Explore the Ecology of Towns & Villages

A small town located in a valley.

On Tuesday, September 17, Richard Forman, a renowned landscape ecologist and long-time research collaborator of the Harvard Forest, will present his new book on the ecology of towns and villages in a free public lecture in the Fisher Museum, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Those who can't attend this talk in person can catch the live-stream of

July 20, 2019

New Tweeting Tree Is Climate Change Storyteller

The view under a red oak tree known as the witness tree.

This month, Harvard Forest launched the first tweeting tree in North America. 

The project has been years in the making. The 100-year-old red oak tree first came into the spotlight in 2017, as the focal point for the climate change book Witness Tree, written by visiting Bullard Fellow Lynda Mapes. In 2018, post-doctoral fellow Tim Rademacher (from Northern Arizona University and

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