The Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS) has partnered with regional partners to develop a series of short guides designed to help private landowners consider climate change in the context of their woods. These guides can also serve as a tool to help landowners effectively talk with consulting foresters about their goals, potential risks, and actions they would like to take to keep their forests healthy.
Several of these regional guides include a list of Climate-informed Actions. These lists are intended to provide landowners with potential solutions to support their woods and forests into the future, but do not suggest specific treatment options.
Guides with Action Lists:
- Keeping Your Woods Healthy (Maine)
- Keeping Your Woods Healthy (Rhode Island)
- Keeping Your Woods Healthy (Vermont)
Other guides contain scorecards or checklists to help landowners think about forests at a property-level, with the focus on topics such as forest diversity, structure, regeneration, and other factors. These scorecards and checklists include information about localized forest concerns and provide landowners with a list of actionable strategies to address them.
Guides with Scorecards or Checklists:
- Keep Penn's Woods Healthy (Pennsylvania)
- Keep Forests Healthy (New York)
- Protect Your Woods for Tomorrow (Wisconsin)
- Keep Your Woods Healthy for Tomorrow (Michigan)
- Keep Your Woods Healthy for Tomorrow (Minnesota)
Finally, in partnership with the Nature Conservancy, NIACS also developed a longer guide that describes 10 climate-smart forest management practices designed to increase carbon storage in the hardwood forests of New England and New York. This guide provides more in-depth information regarding treatments, on-the-ground applications, and the effect of management on forest carbon.