At the Finley Center: Make Plans for Learning and Support

At the Finley Center: Make Plans for Learning and Support

By Allyson Muth, Director, James C. Finley Center for Private Forests at Penn State

Forest Landowners Conference

We are excited to share with you about the upcoming 2025 Forest Landowners Conference on March 7 and 8! Planning is well underway and some changes to the structure of the event will hopefully make participation easier.

New this year, the Landowners Conference is occurring the day after Penn State Extension’s Forest Health Briefing on March 6. This full-day overview of forest health challenges and management strategies has always welcomed landowners, but we’ve seen relatively few, and we’d like to see more interested landowners participate in this informative event. Topics for this year’s Briefing include: remote sensing for forest health, native defoliators, impacts of deer on forest vegetation, how nematodes (sources of several tree diseases) move in the landscape, and the annual forest insect and disease update from the Bureau of Forestry. Our hope is that many of our engaged woodland owners would enjoy attending the Briefing and expand their education around forest health, and that many of the professionals attending the Briefing will stay on and join us for the Landowners Conference the next day. A reception that late afternoon will bridge the two events.

Friday, March 7 will be the bulk of the Forest Landowners Conference. With a full day of 66 presentation opportunities, a lunchtime keynote address from Ethan Tapper, consulting forester and author from Vermont, and exhibit hall where attendees can find service providers and resources to enact projects or address concerns learned about in the sessions, participants have a wealth of learning available to them. Presentation topics included thus far are as diverse as medicinal benefits of forests, wood identification, assessing deer impacts on the woods, using drones to survey boundary lines, forest management practices for wildlife, resources for working with foresters, and on and on. An optional Friday keynote banquet will welcome internationally renowned tropical forest ecologist and National Geographic Explorer, Dr. Nalini Nadkarni.

Saturday, March 8 will offer half-day in-depth tours and workshops for participants wanting to delve a little deeper into specific subjects. On-site, workshops on macroscopic and microscopic wood identification, invasive species identification and control, dyeing materials with black walnut, and getting started with the woods in your backyard will be offered. Off-site tour options include a visit to the Penn State Deer Research Center, winter tree identification, small equipment operation for the woodland owner, a visit to Scotia Gamelands to see management practices to enhance wildlife habitat, and a few more that are in the works. Also on Saturday, we’ll hold an open house for families and community members to interact with exhibitors and activities to encourage families to learn more about Penn’s Woods.

Make plans to join us for some or all of the events in March! The registration site will open in mid-November. This link takes you to a site with more information and will take you registration once it goes live: https://ecosystems.psu.edu/forest-conference. We hope to see you in March!

End-of-Year Giving

For the second time, the Finley Center is participating in Penn State’s GivingTuesday campaign. On the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving (this year December 3), non-profit organizations around the nation participate in campaigns to ask interested members of the public to give of their time, resources, or voices to support efforts people believe in. Follow our social media (@finleyprivateforests on Facebook and Instagram) to know when crowdfunding goes live. Via fundraising, we seek to cultivate people and resources to broaden our impact to cultivate undergraduate and graduate experiences focused on private woodlands, undertake research and scholarship, expand the forest stewardship community, inspire caring well for the woods, strengthen connections across members of the stewardship community, both professionals and landowners alike, and create a sustainable program that carries this work into the future.

For those interested in supporting the Finley Center financially outside of GivingTuesday, the Center has a well-established endowment and gratefully accepts financial contributions. You can visit the Center’s donation website at https://raise.psu.edu/FinleyCenterNews or scan the QR code below to take you there. We thank you for your support.