Changing Roles Webinar Series

Changing Roles

Webinar Series

Welcome!

The 2010 Changing Roles Webinar Series wrapped up in October. The good news is that the webinar sessions have been recorded and archived and therefore, you can still earn continuing education credits from your desktop at your convenience by viewing these archived sessions. To access the 2010 sessions, click here.

While no longer eligible for continuing education credits, you can still access and view the archived sessions from our first webinar series in 2009, click here.

What will you learn?

This 4-part webinar series introduces a few of the concepts in a new Changing Roles module under development that focuses on emerging issues in the wildland-urban interface. The webinar speakers include experts and practitioners sharing their experience, relevant research findings, and best practices. Case studies and exercises will offer insights into strategies. The main session topics include: green infrastructure, forest cooperatives, climate change, and ecosystem services.

Who should participate?

Natural resource professionals who want to learn more about wildland-urban interface issues, opportunities, and strategies.

What continuing education credit is available?

The CR webinar series provides a convenient, free professional development option for busy professionals who want to earn continuing education credits without paying travel expenses or taking time off work. Society of American Foresters and International Society of Aboriculture continuing education credits have been applied for and participants who log in to the live sessions are eligible.

Session Details:

September 20th, 12:00-1:00 pm EST
Click here to access the archived session

Green Infrastructure

Karen Firehock

Executive Director, Green Infrastructure Center

At the wildland urban interface, both people and wildlife are at risk -- people risk losing lives and property from wildfire while wildlife lose habitat as development encroaches into areas that were once rural or undeveloped. This risk is expected to increase as land development continues into previously undeveloped landscapes. Forest fragmentation from land development is one of the top threats facing the Southern Region and the rate of fragmentation is increasing. Sprawl-patterned development is putting increased pressure on natural systems that we rely on for clean water, air quality and wildlife habitat.

This webinar session will:
     • describe the reasons, processes, and approaches for identifying and
        evaluating a community’s natural resource assets and how to conserve
        them.
     • demonstrate why a green infrastructure planning approach is a useful way to
        conserve critical natural assets while channeling growth and development to
        more appropriate areas.
     • describe the role played by local governments and county foresters in natural
        resource assessment and stewardship.
     • suggest how to apply natural resource asset maps within a locality's existing
        land planning tools and regulations to conserve key forest resources in
       developing landscapes.

September 27th, 12:00 pm-1:00 pm EST
Click here to access the archived session

Forest Cooperatives

Scott Bagley

Program Director, Center for Cooperative Forest Enterprises, The National Network of Forest Practitioners

Fragmentation, parcelization, and conversion have produced substantial changes in many forested landscapes, making working forest conservation more difficult. An additional trend affecting forest conservation efforts has been an influx of newcomers, who have proven to be difficult for traditional extension and industry programs to reach. New messages and new messengers are key components of any strategy geared to reaching these new landowners. Forest cooperatives have emerged as those new messengers in many areas of the US, growing steadily and partnering with landowners to provide a suite of services and take care of tens of thousands of acres of forestlands.

This webinar session will:
     • highlight examples of how cooperatives are bringing more landowners
        into forestry, coordinating cross-boundary projects to enable treatment of
        small-acreage parcels, and maintaining stewardship continuity across
        generations.
     • share information about the progress of a national roundtable of forest
        cooperative leaders who are working together to share lessons learned.
     • describe how cooperatives are facilitating peer-to-peer learning, assisting
        landowners with climate change adaptation, and exploring ways to
        sustainably aggregate biomass.
     • describe how cooperatives and other conservation and natural resources
        professionals can work together to conserve working forests and re-weave
        forested landscapes parcel by parcel.

October 4th, 12:00-1:00 pm EST
Click here to access the archived session

Ecosystem Goods and Services

Dr. Francisco Escobedo

Assistant Professor, Urban Forestry, School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida

Ecosystem services have recently been promoted as a strategy for conserving forests, a means for quantifying benefits to people, and a term that describes the importance of nature. However, the recent rates of urbanization, the lack of prioritization of forest conservation by local and regional governments, and different uses of this term by land managers often brings into question the utility of this concept. Nonetheless, there is growing appreciation for the role ecosystem services play in maintaining ecosystem functioning upon which human life depends. Tune in to learn more about this new environmental buzzword.

This webinar session will:
     • discuss the varied definitions of ecosystem services and the role of
        economic valuation.
     • provide examples of how the ecosystem services concept applies to the
        wildland-urban interface.
     • examine case studies in which this approach has been used to address land
        management issues associated with urbanization.

October 15th, 12:00-1:00 pm EST
Click here to access the archived session

Climate Change

Dr. Steve McNulty

Team Leader, Ecologist Eastern Forest Environmental Threats Assessment Center. USDA Forest Service

There remains a misconception that climate change is something that could become a problem in the future, but has little impact on ecosystems and people today. Unfortunately, while the impacts of climate change are likely to become more severe in the future, the initial impacts of climate change are already here. Since 1850’s, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases associated with global warming have changed the climate of the US, and that rate of change is increasing. Forests have slowly evolved over thousands of years, and the impacts of rapid climate change on ecosystem health and natural resource supply is uncertain. However, there is sufficient evidence to indicate the general direction if not magnitude of change.

This webinar session will:

     • provide an introduction to climate change
     • discuss interactions between climate change and other environmental stresses on
        US forest health including increasing climate variability, bringing more intense precipitation
events, droughts, and heat waves. These changes will then affect soil erosion,
        sedimentation, and wildfire.
     • discuss potential changes in insect and disease outbreak.
     • discuss long-term climate change leading to changes in ecosystem composition, fisheries,
        and wildlife habitat, forest and range land productivity, and stream flow.

Where can I find the archived sessions?

As an added benefit, each session is archived online for viewing at your convenience. To access these sessions visit: www.forestrywebinars.com. To access a particular session highlighted below simply click on the orange circle and you will be redirected. To access handouts distributed and files generated during the webinar sessions, visit the Webinar 2010 section of our Trainer's Corner.

Is there a WUI issue that you'd like to learn more about? Suggest a topic for future webinars here nmwulff@fs.fed.us

For more information on the Changing Roles Professional Development Program or the Changing Roles Webinar Series, please contact:

Nicole Wulff
Changing Roles Training Coordinator
USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, SRS-4952
Phone: (352)378-2451
Email: nmwulff@fs.fed.us
www.interfacesouth.org/products/changing-roles

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