Project Overview
Forest owners in northwest Washington face production risks from drought and wildfire during the decades it takes to bring a stand of trees to maturity. These risks are heightened by climate variability, which increases fire frequency and moisture stress. The 2020 wildfires highlighted these risks, creating an environment in which producers are especially receptive to learning how to increase their forests’ resilience to climate disruption, using techniques such as forest thinning and clearing “ladder fuels” that can lead a fire from the understory into the forest canopy.
This project, “Increasing Forest Producer Resiliency in the face of Wildfire and Drought Risks in NW Washington,” built on previous partnerships funded by USDA Risk Management Agency and Extension Risk Management Education. Through a combination of 64 one-on-one site visits, three fireside chats, and three in-person workshops, we helped 194 forest producers learn about, develop, and implement risk reduction projects in their forests. Equipped with a practical understanding of how much thinning is needed and what to do with the woody biomass removed, the forest producers we reached through our programming are now better equipped to adopt and implement medium-range management plans to reduce risk, make their forests more resilient, and improve profitability by avoiding crop loss.
Number of Participants: 194
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS
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EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS
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REPORTS & EVALUATIONS
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