Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Blog

Pair Pioneers Ecology & Religion Program by Liliana Varman After spending four days by himself in the Mojave desert without access to food, Stephen Blackmer FES ’83 DIV ’12 found his calling. The 49-year-old had spent his life working to conserve New England forests, but said that trip expanded his views on how to protect the environment... Read full article at: http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/feb/28/pair-pioneers-ecology-and-religion-program/
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Environmental law students and practitioners should focus their efforts on attacking the often hidden architecture of the polluting state, according to a report released yesterday by the Yale Environmental Law Association. The report details insights from the Yale Environmental Law Association’s inaugural conference in its New Directions in Environmental Law, which took place on April 2nd, 2011. The theme of last year’s conference - A Climate of Possibility – represented the goals and spirit of the day. It drew over 200 practitioners, policymakers, students, and academics together to critically examine law’s confrontation with climactic environmental and social challenges. The conference galvanized participants to see environmental law in new ways—reflecting a range of social justice and scientific concerns and replete with unexplored possibilities. It inaugurated an annual series of conversations intended to…
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I’m really excited—tomorrow night I’m going to my first New Haven Symphony concert at Woolsey Hall in close to 15 years. For over a hundred years, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra has been playing for the citizens of the Elm City, and I really can’t wait to re-expose myself to some of the cultural history of New Haven. Something about entering a space like Woolsey Hall (see the picture!), and being transported to another place through sights and sounds... it is just an occasional indulgence into the arts for me (I’m more of a sports girl), but one I really look forward to! When living in New York City, my favorite thing to do every summer was claim a piece of grass as my…
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Dr. Robin Chazdon has shared a bibliography of papers referenced in her Keyonte Address, "Making Tropical Forest Succession Successful" at the 18th Annual Conference of the Yale Chapter of the International Society of Tropical Foresters. ABSTRACT - Tropical forest succession follows distinct pathways depending on prior land use, post-abandonment disturbance, faunal diversity, and the dynamics of the surrounding landscape. These distinct pathways determine rates of change in species composition, forest structure, and ecosystem processes. Metrics of "success" during forest regrowth are largely determined by values of different stakeholders. Conservation biologists value regrowth as habitats for endemic species and forest specialists. Local people value regrowth for numerous ecosystem products and services. Ecotourists value regrowth forests for recreation and viewing wildlife. Today, most successional forests in the tropics were not planned…
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Planting Empowerment presented at the ISTF on how its private sector model for mixed native species timber plantations is implemented with Indigenous Peoples communities and small landowners.
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Before I became deeply embedded in the sphere of environmental policy, I used to be a chemical ecologist who spent two summers researching the Costa Rican and Ecuadorian tropics.  Yesterday, I decided it was time to go back to my "roots," and attend a session of the International Society of Tropical Forests conference.  I landed in a workshop on Intellectual Property Rights and Ethics led by New York Botanical Garden's Ina Vandebroek, who is an ethnomedical research specialist.

Ina's work, particularly in Bolivia, involves close interaction with communities who have a lot of local knowledge about plant and tree species endemic to their areas. The knowledge of medicinal plants, in particular, is of potential interest and value…
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Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls. And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light. Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862).

Each of the 98 pictures tell the story of the students who are studying at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies as they did in the past and during the years prior to that. These are the stories of adventurous professional lives before being FES students, and of serendipitous encounters while doing summer research as FES students. Every picture is a reminder of memories that the students wish to retain forever and stories that they would like to share with others.

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Community-based forest monitoring has been gaining traction as a means to achieving the elusive win-win scenario of sustainable forest management and meaningful involvement of local communities. The question is – How can we make it happen? What does a successful community-based monitoring system look like? FES Masters student Meredith Martin led a workshop on this topic, based on her personal experience with community-based monitoring of Agave harvest in tropical dry forests in Guerrero, Mexico. Most of you will know Agave as the plant used to make the Mexican traditional liquor, mescal, and its more widely consumed cousin, tequila. The Acateyahualco community has been monitoring wild agave in their communal area for four years, as a result of a collaboration with a local NGO and researchers from the New York Botanical Garden. Meredith…
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Our first panel talk this morning came from an organization I heard many, many good things about, CIPAV (Center for Research in Sustainable Systems in Agricultural Production - Fundación Centro para la Investigación en Sistemas Sostenibles de Producción Agropecuaria). This group has developed strategies that integrate shrubs for cattle fodder, fruit trees, and timber into strategies they call intensive silvopastoral systems. These systems show dramatic increases in production for the farmer without using chemical inputs. If you think I’m trying to sell you on their work, you’re right. Indulge me for a moment while I tell you about what is so exciting about their strategies to improve the environment and livelihoods together. I spent this past summer in Cesar Colombia, doing research on oil palm plantations. However, I couldn’t ignore…
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"When we look at forests, we see them as systems in progress, they are under construction".

This is what Robin concluded near the end of her presentation, while showing the audience a photo of a lush, green forest, with a yellow “Under Construction” sign in the middle. Entertaining, engaging, and educational, Robin spoke of the checklist for successful natural regeneration, using examples from all over the world, largely from Central and Latin America where much of her research focuses. Some of these tools included beneficial topsoil, weed suppressing plants, fire protection, and animal diversity. “You need the whole tropic system, to get a forest back”, she said. Everyone nodded. We know the importance of bugs; even if we don’t want them in our kitchens, we need them in our forests. Robin also talked of the importance of indigenous knowledge. Later panel presenters such as Zoraida Calle, Laura Snook and Aerin Jacob reiterated the need to retain local knowledge. Governments are not always the ones who benefit from reforestation, and they are definitely not the ones putting in the hard labor. It seems important to incorporate local knowledge with scientific research, but how do we do this? One example of how Robin has worked to integrate these approaches is through the newly formed neoSelvas network (http://www.neoselvas.org/). They are seeking to bring together people from many fields and disciplines to integrate ecology and forestry with social and political knowledge of the tropics. I hope interested parties join and participate in this network.

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