What Land & What Next? How to Protect Forests in Changing Times
Free and in-person at NBNC

Tickets Required – Register Here

The combined threats of fragmentation, habitat loss, climate change, and biodiversity collapse require us to rethink how we conserve Vermont’s forests. How do we choose which lands to conserve, and then how do we steward them responsibly? Vermont Land Trust Forester Caitlin Cusack will share examples of how VLT is adapting its conservation strategies to address these threats and restore ecological function, support cultural heritage, and meet society’s needs for timber and non-timber forest products and services.

About Caitlin: Caitlin Cusack is a forester with the Vermont Land Trust, managing land owned by VLT, advising on forest management on conserved land, contributing to forest education and outreach efforts, and providing a forestry perspective for conservation project design. She joined VLT in 2015 after serving as a consulting forester and then as an educator with the VT Urban and Community Forestry Program. She holds a Master of Forestry from Yale University and BA from The College of the Holy Cross. Caitlin serves on the steering committee for Women and Our Woods VT. As a lover of the understory and the overstory, she enjoys botanizing, hiking, trail running, skiing, and dancing in her spare time. She lives in Bristol with her husband and daughter and is co-owner of their bird-friendly sugaring business, Little Hogback Farm.

About our Naturalist Journeys 2025 Winter Presentation Series: This year’s series focuses on making healthy and sustainable forests in Vermont. How should we weigh competing forest management goals? Is timber harvesting at odds with biodiversity? Can felling a tree save a bird? When can logging be a radical act of compassion? How do Vermont’s ecological foresters make choices? What happens when we restore a forest’s wild autonomy? We hope you’ll join the discussion. The series runs December through February.

In-person events will be livestreamed on our YouTube page.

Naturalist Journeys is made possible by our sponsors:

Hunger Mountain Coop
802 Coffee
Onion River Outdoors
Washington Electric Co-op
Stone Environmental
Waite-Heindel Environmental