There are remarkably few rigorous, long-term evaluations of how forestry and conservation-management practices affect forests in the eastern United States.  Managers frequently conduct operations to control forest structure or composition, improve wildlife habitat, remove invasive species, or influence biogeochemical processes, etc. without comparing the activity's results with unmanipulated control areas.  Conversely, where research projects do exist in unmanaged, they are seldom coupled with adjacent comparable lands that are actively managed. 

A group of scholars recently proposed a bold conservation vision for New England, where 70% of the region's forests would be permanently protected from development.  Ninety percent of these forests would be considered "Woodlands" and managed for forest products, wildlife habitat, recreation, aesthetics, etc.; ten percent would be considered "Wildlands" or reserves, subject to minimal human impact and shaped only by the environment.

We created a simple, easy-to-use protocol for establishing permanent, paired research plots in conserved Wildlands and Woodlands to assess the long-term impacts and effectiveness of forest management practices that seek to promote certain characteristics (specific species, assemblages, or structure, etc.), enhance ecosystem services (e.g. carbon sequestration, water production, etc.), or yield desired products (biomass, quality timber, etc.).  These plots would be resampled on 5- to 10-year intervals.

Results/Conclusions

Since 2008, a growing number of groups throughout New England have begun employing this approach to enhance a wide variety of scientific, educational, and management objectives on their land in a diversity of forest types and in contrasting landscape settings. We highlight selected sites to illustrate the many uses of the data collected, the geographic interest in this approach, and the wide range of potential collaboration efforts. Pilot data from all sites have been placed into a simple website with a database for users to view and upload data from program sites. This protocol can be applied across variously managed landscapes and used by anyone capable of identifying tree species and making simple measurements.

This project will not only provide valuable ecological and silvicultural insights over the coming decades, but is already proving to be a exciting outreach tool for engaging students and the public in the importance and enjoyment of ecological research, and helping them gain longer-term perspectives on ecological processes, land stewardship, and land conservation.