Forest Stewardship: Resilience for a Changing Climate
More than 60% of Massachusetts is forest, making it the eighth most forested state in the country. More than three-quarters are privately owned by individuals, land trusts, as well as tribal entities who have carefully stewarded lands for tens of thousands of years.
Forests come in many different shapes and sizes, from state and town forests, to community parks, to trees lining neighborhood and city streets. Beyond sheer beauty, they’re key to our identity and culture, providing ecological richness, societal well-being, and economic vitality. Fostering resilient forests isn’t just about tree health; it’s about ours, and all who call these forests home.
Even with an abundance of open space, only 20% of Massachusetts is formally protected from development. To help reach the state’s goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the MA Forests as Climate Solution plan seeks to conserve 30% of public and private land by 2030, and 40% by 2050. This requires understanding the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems, updating state and private management plans with climate-smart forestry best practices, establishing new forests, and promoting the economic value of sustainable forests.
This year, your team is tasked with answering the question:
What are the top 3 specific ways my community can contribute to reaching the state goal of 30% conservation by 2030 and 40% by 2050?
To answer this question, you’ll need to explore the following:
- Forest benefits: Discover the range of ecosystem services that your forests provide for nature and human health.
- Local climate change: Research the main threats climate change poses to forests, trees, soil, water, wildlife, and humans in your area.
- Find your forests: Map and assess the forested/wooded/treed areas in your community for health and resilience.
- Forest experts: Connect with Indigenous land stewards, forest ecologists, land trusts, landowners, timber harvesters, woodworkers, and tree wardens to discover best conservation practices.
- Tree equity: Explore whether “the benefits of urban tree canopy are reaching communities who need them most” (treeequityscore.org) and suggest areas for planting more trees.
- Forest protection: Identify local and state laws, policies, and incentives to help people increase the resilience of forests, trees, and your community.
2025 Current Issue Background and Resources (pdf)
For teams who want to use the Harvard Forest schoolyard ecology database in their research, here’s a description of how to use the data, or enter your data.
You may also want to take a look at the Community Engagement Award Checklist– it is a great guide to how to do your CI research (and it is a great way to get recognized for all your hard work!)
Workshop resources:
Slide decks from UMass Lowell presentations(2/5/25):
Sustainable Building Materials presentation from UMass Amherst (3/14/25)
Forests Are Everywhere panel from Fall workshop
Our Changing Forests with Harvard Forest from Fall workshop
Massachusetts Envirothon 