The Wisconsin County Forest Association and NIACS hosted two workshops to help county forests meet the new "Climate-Smart Forestry" expectations in the updated Forest Management Standards for SFI. We also expect these workshops to help with soon-to-be-released FSC certification expectations. The workshops focused on identifying climate change risks and developing management actions to adapt to those risks. Counties brought small team (2-4 people) to the workshop, and some counties invited DNR liaisons. We offered this workshop in two locations - February 7 in Wausau and Feb 8 in Hayward.

Pre-work: Counties completed the following pre-work before the workshop:  

Tasks for everyone:

1. Watch Climate Change Impacts for Northwoods Forests (40-min recorded webinar).
2. Review the climate change report from the Lake States SFI State Implementation Committees (below, 11 pages).
3. Review the climate change resources available for forests in your part of the state.  

• Field guide for northern WI or southern WI (If you have copies of these field guide, please bring them to the workshop)
• Climate Change Tree Atlas information for northern WI or southern WI 

Task for each county team:

1. Select three forest types that are a priority for your county to consider at this workshop. You could determine priority by acreage, management focus, expected climate impacts, or other factors. For each priority forest type, complete the Goals and Objectives worksheet (below) and email to Stephen Handler (Stephen.handler@usda.gov) by February 3. You should be able to summarize information from your 15-year County Forest Management Plan for this step. County staff should work together on this task (Send one worksheet per county).