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Directors Note - August 2025

Reminder: Our mailing address is PO Box 6058, Santa Fe, NM 87502

Many thanks to everyone who has renewed their Guild membership. Your energy and action powers the Guild. If you haven’t had a chance yet, please renew here today and if you’re not a Guild member yet, please use this link to join us. Don’t let financial hardship keep you out of the Guild. Just let us know you need temporary assistance with your membership.

We also encourage you to reach out to your colleagues and partners and invite them to join the Guild too. We need all of you to build a broad and strong culture of forest stewardship across the country.

There is so much happening for the good of forests and communities — advancing good policy, exploiting new technology, and nurturing the spark that inspires us together — we want you to be part of the fun!

Thank you,

Zander

News from the Forest

Why Have a Wildfire Detection Camera for Santa Fe?

Written by Eytan Krasilovsky

I’ve been asking myself the same question for a year. In my work at the Guild, we focus a lot on wildfire. What the Guild doesn’t do is wildfire response and suppression. So why an AI wildfire detection camera?

Read more

University of Alabama group in front of Caring Days sign

Founding Guild Member Hosts 30th Anniversary Celebration in Maine

Written by Logan Johnson and Barrie Brusila

In June, founding member, Barrie Brusila, hosted a Guild Gathering at her family's woodlot in Warren, Maine to celebrate 30 years of the Forest Stewards Guild.

Read more

Setting the Agenda for the Forest Sector

Written by Zander Evans

The 9th American Forest Congress further built on the 7th and 8th Congresses and created a historic gathering of 500 leaders in our field. It was great to see so many Guild members and partner organizations at the Congress. Read more

Upcoming Events

There are many Guild and partner events this autumn— Don’t forget to check out the Webinar Library to catch up on what you may have missed, and watch our events lineup to stay in the loop with all Guild-related happenings coming up.

August 22 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET	Talbotton, GA	Georgia Heirs Property & Estate Planning Workshop
August 27 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. PT	Webinar	Significant mortality of old trees across a dry forest landscape in Oregon
Sept 3 - Sept 5 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. ET	Louisville, KY	Open Canopy Workshop
Sept 10 & 11 All day	St Louis, MO	FSC US Stewardship in Action Meeting 2025
Sept 17 - Sept 20 All day	Ripton, VT	Northeastern Old Growth Conference
September 24 1:00 p.m. CEST	Webinar	Delivering EUDR: FSC & Collective Actions for a Deforestation-Free Future
September 26 8:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. PT	Rainier, OR	Forestry for the Birds: Columbia Stock Ranch Tour
September 27, 28 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. ET	Williamsburg, ME	8th Annual Specialized Chainsaw Safety Workshop
September 29 - October 2 8:00 am - 5:00 p.m. ET	West Lafayette, IN	NCFPW 2025: Application of Digital Technology for Forest Health
September 30 – October 2 All day	Los Lunas, NM	2025 Wildland Urban Fire Summit
October 7, 8 9:00 - 5:30 p.m. CT	Cloquet, MN	Northern Forest Birds Network Fall Conference
October 9 - October 11 Time: TBD	Cloverdale, OR	Northwest Innovative Forestry Summit 2025
November 18 -20 Time: TBD	Flagstaff, AZ	Ponderosa Pine Utilization Summit

Welcome New Members

Thank you all for being part of this community. We are in the second month of a new membership year running July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026! It's a great time to join the Guild and an essential time to renew your existing membership, if you haven't already.

Lifetime Members

Ehrhard Frost, Forestry Solutions

Plattsburgh, NY

Professional and Retired Professional Members

David Grover, The Nature Conservancy	Long Beach, WA
Trevor Keough, Winnakee Land Trust	Pine Plains, NY
Megan Martinez	Athens, GA
Daniel Oakley	Athens, GA
Carrie Sargeant, Global Forest Cooperative	Lambertville, NJ
Amy Waltz, Ecologist & Science Communicator	Flagstaff, AZ
Mike Zupko	Monroe, GA

Affiliate Members

James Tauber	Washington D.C.
Molly Thompson, Sugarloaf The North Shore Stewardship Association	Duluth, MN

Student Members

Riley Hunter, Allegheny College	Bethel Park, PA
Madeleine Luneau, San Francisco State University	San Francisco, CA
Joe Youtz, New Mexico State University	Baton Rouge, LA

Notes

Guild efforts are getting attention!

No-cost Technical Assistance Now Available to Wood Manufacturing Facilities The USDA Forest Service has partnered with the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities to support direct, expert technical assistance to wood products manufacturers, provided by industry expert consults, through the Wood Manufacturing Assistance Team (WMAT).

Great new video on the value of fire science exchange Fire Science Exchange Network, part of the Joint Fire Science Program, connects wildland fire research with the people who need it most—land managers, firefighters, practitioners, and communities. Through regional exchanges, they deliver science you can use to make informed wildland fire and land management decisions.

Upper Rio Grande Copse Cutting Stewardship should support a local restoration economy. This idea is central to the Guild's work in the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project (CFLRP). Many dedicated partners are working together to build systems that advance ecological goals AND put money in local pockets. Santa Clara Pueblo, National Wildlife Federation, and the Guild explored how local willow growers could sell climate adapted plants for successful restoration projects in the Upper Rio Grande. Check out the two-page project summary to learn more!

Forestry for the Birds on Silvicast The Guild's own Christian Nelson joined the Silvicast Podcast for A Bird's Eye View, and discussion about Forestry for the Birds programs and the new Forestry for Minnesota Birds Guidebook

Each of the Pacific Northwest’s community-owned forests has a unique story to tell Community-owned forests come in many forms, but all provide a combination of meaningful environmental, economic, and social benefits to local communities – benefits such as income, clean water, recreation, education, fire resilience, wildlife habitat, and strong partnerships.

Publications

Will Increased Timber Harvesting Reduce Wildfire Hazards? A new report from Resources for the Future addresses the question Will Increased Timber Harvesting on Federal Lands Reduce Growing Wildfire Hazards? The take home message is: "While selective harvesting can play a role in hazard reduction, effects on risk depend on how and where harvests are implemented. Market realities and declining federal capacity to implement nuanced, site-specific forest treatments present real constraints."

Wash, rinse, repeat: The Trump administration moves to repeal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Clinton administration promulgated the Roadless Area Conservation Rule in 2001 to conserve unroaded areas on national forestlands across the country for biodiversity conservation, clean water provision, watershed health, hunting and fishing opportunities, non-motorized recreation, and otherwise to preserve options for future multiple-use management and conservation of lands with wilderness characteristics. Read more at American Bar Association, written by Guild member, SJ Brown.

The Roadless Rule may have prevented wildfires. Rescinding the Roadless Rule won't change our current federal land management capacity to improve management and stop wildfires.

Prescribed fire led to a 14% reduction of smoke emissions. Study shows that prescribed fire led to a 14% reduction of smoke emissions (wildfires and prescribed fire smoke combined).