Managing Forests as Habitat in a Changing World: A Panel Discussion Webinar Series

These interactive panel discussions connect land managers, researchers, and practitioners spanning diverse geographies and ownerships to explore managing and stewarding forest habitats amid social and ecological changes.

Climatic shifts are impacting forest habitats across the U.S., challenging how we fulfill our mission of conserving, protecting, and enhancing wildlife habitat. Warming winters, extreme precipitation events, drought and catastrophic wildfires, and other elements affect pollinators, game species, bats, fish, birds, and the people who steward their habitats. Ecosystem management and community-building are part of the solution to addressing these challenges.

This series provides examples of ecological silviculture and restoration techniques that enhance habitat along with the planning, policy, guidance, and partnerships needed to implement these actions. Panels will represent a diversity of biologists, foresters, and scientists to help participants discover management tools, respond to climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change
, and build on collaborative conservation success (and failure!) stories.

The topic series explores the impacts of a changing world on forest ecosystems and adaptation options for natural resource management. Panelists will discuss projects, barriers and solutions, lessons learned, and next steps.

Audience:

Series topics will be applicable to biologists, foresters, land managers and planners, and other natural resource practitioners working in Federal, State, Tribal, and local government agencies, and non-government and private organizations.

Webinars:

  • The webinars will occur on the third Tuesday of the month from 12:00-1:30 PM Eastern time using Zoom. 
  • Each 90-minute webinar session will include short opening presentations from panelists, a moderated panel discussion, and facilitated question and answer time with the audience.
  • The Wildlife Society and the Society of American Foresters offer 1.5 continuing education units (CEUs) for each webinar attended.
  • You must register in advance for the series. This series has a one-time registration which means you will register one time for all of the webinars in this series.
REGISTER FOR THE SERIES

Webinar recordings will be posted below the schedule and on the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science YouTube at a later date.

Schedule:

  • March 18, 2025 - Forest Dwelling Bat Conservation
  • April 15, 2025 - The Changing Landscape for Migratory Forest Birds
  • May 20, 2025 - Resilient Forested Wetlands for Wildlife
  • June 17, 2025 - Forest Management for Pollinators
  • July 17, 2025 - Riparian Habitat Preservation and Management
  • August 19, 2025 - Coexistence of Public Use, Recreation, and Management in Forested Habitats
  • September 16, 2025 - Finding Refuge in Suburbia: Managing Forests for Habitat in an Urban Environment 
  • October 21, 2025 - Mature and Old Growth Forests
  • November 18, 2025 - Culturally Significant Species
  • December 16, 2025 - Collaborative Successes and Challenges of Failures - Industries and Habitats - Building Trust

Contact Information:

FWS Forest Ecology Working Group - amanda_mahaffey@fws.gov
Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science - maria.janowiak@usda.gov

Reasonable Accommodations:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is committed to providing access to this training for all participants. Please direct all requests for sign language interpreting services, closed captioning, or other accommodation needs and CEU to jim_siegel@fws.gov.

Disclaimer: This webinar series is for educational purposes only. The opinions, ideas, or data presented in this webinar series do not represent USFWS policy or constitute endorsement by USFWS. Some of the materials and images may be protected by copyright or may have been licensed to us by a third party and are restricted in their use. Mention of any product names, companies, web links, textbooks, or other references does not imply Federal endorsement.