Date: Tuesday 9 January, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speaker: Chrissy Shaw, Senior Forestry Manager of the Family Forest Carbon Program for Minnesota and Wisconsin, American Forest Foundation

Overview: Please join Chrissy Shaw, the American Forest Foundation’s Senior Forestry Manager of the Family Forest Carbon Program for Minnesota and Wisconsin, for an informational session on the Family Forest Carbon Program (FFCP). The webinar will provide you with the basics of the carbon cycle, explore the carbon marketplace, illustrate the need for carbon programs like FFCP, and then dive into the specifics of the program and how it can benefit private landowners.

Date: Tuesday 13 February, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speaker: Eric Otto, Forest Health Specialist, MN DNR

Overview: Each year, the Minnesota DNR Forest Health team conducts both aerial assessments and on-the-ground monitoring to assess the health of the state’s forests. Join us for this webinar as Eric Otto provides an update on the status and trends in forest health from all corners of the state.

Date: Tuesday 12 March, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speaker: Rachael Dube, Forest Health Specialist, MN DNR

Overview: Rachael Dube will follow up on the broader forest health trends from February's webinar with a more comprehensive look at oak decline, the contributing factors, and what to do about it.

Date: Tuesday 9 April, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speakers: Charlie Blinn, UMN Department of Forest Resources; David Wilson, Minnesota Forest Resources Council

Overview: There are two factors which lead to erosion: the volume of water flowing down a surface, and the velocity that the water is moving. If you can't control both simultaneously, reducing one will still have a favorable impact on your ability to control erosion! There are multiple different approaches to dealing with erosion on forest roads, which can have negative impacts downhill with the flow of sediment. This interactive webinar features both Charlie Blinn teeing up the discussion with some foundational principles of harvest road planning and David Wilson presenting what's actually going on around the state from a Forest Management Guideline (FMG) perspective. 

Date: Tuesday 14 May, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speakers: Anna Stockstad and Emily Dombeck, UMN Extension Specialists; Angie Gupta, UMN Extension Educator

Overview: As Minnesota’s climate changes, forests will face increasing pressure from tree diseases and pests, heavier and more frequent rainfalls, warmer temperatures, and prolonged drought. Using modeled climate response data from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science, University of Minnesota Extension created a suite of regionally specific recommendation lists of climate-resilient trees and plants (z.umn.edu/climateready). This webinar will outline the climate change basis, Extension’s methodology, and the content of these tree and plant lists. 

Date: Tuesday 18 June, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speaker: Christian Nelson, Lake States Coordinator, Forest Stewards Guild

Overview: Christian Nelson will discuss his efforts to create a conservation toolkit for landowners and natural resource professionals. Forestry for MN Birds will go over different strategies for promoting bird-friendly habitat with different management tactics for 15 birds - including those of "greatest conservation need" - representing the full range of forest types across Minnesota.

Date: Tuesday 9 July, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speakers: Mary Hammes, Reforestation Strategy Manager, The Nature Conservancy; Jeff Jackson, Extension Educator, UMN

Overview: Efforts in Minnesota to plant climate-adapted tree species for carbon sequestration and other benefits face significant challenges. One of these challenges is a shortage of climate-adapted tree seed needed for increased seedling production. The Nature Conservancy is leading a project to develop a Climate-Smart Seed and Seedling Production Network (CSSPN) to address two fundamental supply chain issues: seed collection and tree seedling production. Mary will discuss the creation of this network and describe the current partnerships that are making it a reality. Jeff will provide an update on Extension’s role in the project, which is to lead 12 tree seed collection training workshops, and describe ways that you and your organization can be involved in this project.

Date: Tuesday 13 August, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speakers: Stephen Handler, Climate Adaptation Specialist, Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science; Jamie Mosel, UMN Extension Educator; Eli Sagor, Extension Specialist and Program Manager, SFEC

Overview: The goal of the Minnesota Forest-Climate Working Group is to increase communication, coordination, and collaboration across the forestry community about climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation. In this webinar, we will introduce the Minnesota Forest-Climate Working Group, as well as the process, feedback, and updates so far in establishing a collaborative group. 

Date: Tuesday 10 September, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speaker: Mike Kilgore, Professor, UMN Department of Forest Resources

The University of Minnesota's Dr. Mike Kilgore will talk about forest carbon as it relates to forest managers and go over market implications, quantifying and generating carbon credits through forest management, and to what extent foresters need to be considering forest carbon in their day-to-day work.

Date: Tuesday 8 October, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speakers: Greg Edge and Brad Hutnik, Silviculturists, Wisconsin DNR

Overview: Greg and Brad will explore what makes a central hardwood stand and how they might be different in Minnesota compared to Wisconsin. They'll chat about ecological forestry, forest health considerations, and silvicultural strategies in this forest type and set the stage for SFEC's Central Hardwoods Symposium in early 2025.

Date: Tuesday 12 November, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speaker: Marcella Windmuller-Campione, Associate Professor, UMN Department of Forest Resources

Overview: Marcella Windmuller-Campione and her SilvaLab have conducted several studies dealing with tamarack regeneration and stand dynamics amidst an ongoing 24-year outbreak of eastern larch beetle; she will go over the broad implications and takeaways from this varied work.

Date: Tuesday 10 December, 2024 from 9:00-10:00am
Speaker: Megan Eiting, Collaborative Moose Habitat Planner, MN DNR

Photo credit Ryan Pennesi, USFS Superior NF

Overview: Moose are an iconic wildlife species in Minnesota, with cultural and subsistence importance to the Tribal Nations in northeastern Minnesota, who retain hunting rights. Unfortunately, Minnesota’s moose population has declined about 50% over the past 20 years due to a host of overlapping and compounding issues including parasites, predation, habitat decline and a changing climate. As researchers continue to study these issues, habitat restoration at a large-scale (>10,000 acres) is recognized as being a management action that could be particularly beneficial to moose. There has, however, been a lack of habitat restoration at this scale due to challenges such as the patchwork of tribal, federal, state, county, and private land ownership and governance structures, lack of timber markets and limited economic incentives necessary for forest management. The Moose Habitat Planning Project, initiated in June 2023 and funded by an America the Beautiful Challenge grant, is bringing together professionals from 15+ organizations in a series of five collaborative workshops over the next year. The objectives of the workshops are to bring clarity to the social, political, ecological and economic challenges facing moose habitat restoration, identify strategies for addressing those challenges, and develop an implementation plan for three large habitat priority areas within the core moose range in northeastern Minnesota. With the project anticipated to wrap up at the end of November 2024,  this presentation will provide a complete review of the project, outcomes of the workshops, overview of the implementation plan and next steps to fund and carry out the planned restoration actions. The insights gained from this project will be helpful for moose habitat restoration work but also for other natural resource and forest management activities in this region.