Details:
Welcome to the 2025 Dakotas SAF Conference: Silviculture for a Changing World. Western forests are facing unprecedented challenges — more frequent insect outbreaks, prolonged drought, extreme wildfires, and other threats that test their ability to thrive. These environmental stressors are only expected to intensify. How can we prepare our forests to withstand these changes and ensure their long-term resilience? For over 100 years we’ve been managing our forests with a handful of techniques that have had consistent, positive results. But times have changed – and environmental conditions and disturbances have changed too. I find myself wondering: will our traditional methods continue to work? At this year’s conference, we’ll explore real-world strategies to help forests adapt, persist, and flourish in the face of these anticipated challenges. These approaches aren’t meant to replace current forestry methods, but rather to expand our toolkit—complementing what’s already working with techniques that account for emerging realities.
