Linkages between scientific understanding, conservation values, and silviculture are critical to ecologically sustainable forest management.  The longleaf pine ecosystem is one of the rarest forest types in North America and, until recently, one of the least well understood in terms of its basic ecology.  Models of management based on natural disturbance that utilize single tree selection are unique in their ability to maintain the conservation values of the longleaf ecosystem while generating moderate economic returns.  However, many in the forest management community have been reluctant to embrace this approach to management because of misunderstandings about the basic ecology and demographics of longleaf pine forests.

The Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center has been conducting basic and applied research on the longleaf ecosystem for almost 15 years.  Critical information from the Center’s research program on spatial and temporal patterns of natural disturbance, productivity, fire ecology, regeneration dynamics, and competitive processes have fed into a deeper understanding of how these forests function.  This information has helped support and refine an ecologically-based approach to management and silviculture in longleaf forests.   Results/Conclusions

Three years ago, the Center’s education program began offering training courses in ecological forestry in longleaf forests.  These courses are targeted at natural resource professionals in management positions with nongovernmental, state, and federal agencies and organizations.  The courses present basic ecology and natural history of longleaf forests, a natural disturbance based model of silviculture that incorporates the system’s conservation values, and relevant research and quantitative information to support this approach to management. 

This effort is part of a larger national initiative called the Conservation Forestry Network.  To date, 80 people have participated in the courses, with participants directly responsible for the management of more than 1.5 million acres of land.  Evaluations for the course have been very positive, with an average of 90% of participants ranking all aspects of the course as excellent or very good.   Through this work, the Center hopes to foster conservation of the longleaf ecosystem by linking information generated through its research program to educational efforts that impact a targeted constituency of natural resource managers and conservation practitioners.