As we ask more and more of our woods, the field of ecological forestry has emerged to put forest ecosystem health first—without losing sight of other economic and resource goals. Consulting Forester Alex Barrett of Long View Forest will provide a practitioner’s perspective on how ecological forestry works, and how it is changing how we think about managing forests—from landowner perceptions, to economics, to our society’s reliance on the products and services that forests provide.

Northern forests face a number of new threats, from severe weather patterns driven by climate change, to invasive insects and pathogens. But novel forest management techniques can prepare forests to be more resilient in the face of an uncertain future.