Welcome to the 2023 Annual Conference
of the Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative.
I'm Justin Perry.
I'm the Chief of the Bureau
of Invasive Species in Ecosystem Health
within the Department of Environmental Conservation
in New York State
and I'm the current chair of the FEMC Steering Committee.
It's my pleasure to be kicking off our conference
with the theme of forest as solutions
to a wide range of issues,
thinking especially about the role forests can play
in improving wellbeing
and address both climate change and our biodiversity crisis.
The work all of us has the potential
to positively impact each of these things
and I'm excited to hear from our plenary speakers
who will be digging into some of the specifics
of that with us.
This past year at the FEMC has been a year
of reorganization, taking stock, reorientation,
reorientating the many ways
FEMC works with its partners, collaborators
in tackling pressing forest health concerns.
After a period of transition in 2022,
FEMC was able to complete several ongoing projects,
apply for funding for new and exciting work,
and continue to build its collaborative network.
In the past year,
each state held a state partnership committee meeting
where they helped identify the priorities for the region.
And yesterday, the FEMC Joint Committee
met to discuss potential projects for next year.
These projects will include two state-focused projects,
beginning a five-year project
to develop a region-wide, region-wise tool
for invasive species early detection
based on cutting-edge DNA metabarcoding technology,
continuing FEMC's annual regional forest health monitoring,
and much more.
Following the long-term FEMC champion
Senator Leahy's retirement last year,
we have continued to develop
and strengthen our relationships
with the congressional delegation
for all of our partner states to ensure long-term support
of FEMC and its mission.
I'd like to thank all of the experts
and leaders in the region
who help to build up and sustain the cooperative,
and to the Forest Service
for its continued support of the program.
I would also like to thank
our conference planning committee,
Eli Ward, Alana Russell, Julianna White, Meg Ferguson,
Jess Cancelliere, Logan Johnson, and Alison Adams.
Thank you all for your excellent work
in developing the theme and plenary presenters
for this year's conference.
This has been a great year for FEMC
and we have an even more exciting year ahead.
So, take advantage of the sessions today
to get inspired and get connected.
And thank you for being here.
Don't look outside.
(audience laughing)
And with that, I'd like to welcome to the stage
Alison Adams, director of the FEMC.
(audience clapping)
All right, thank you so much, Justin.
It's really great to be here with all of you.
We have more than 200 people here today,
which is really exciting.
We have another 30 people or so joining us online,
so I'm really excited today to get to hear from
and speak with a lot of you.
I wanna start this morning by acknowledging
that the campus of the University of Vermont
sits within a place
of gathering and exchange shaped by water
and stewarded by ongoing generations of indigenous peoples,
in particular, the Western Abenaki.
Acknowledging the relations between water, land, and people
is in harmony with the mission
of the University of Vermont.
Acknowledging the serious and significant impacts
of our histories on indigenous peoples and their homelands
is a part of the university's ongoing work
of teaching, research, and engagement,
and is an essential reminder of our past
and our interconnected futures
for the many of us gathered on this land.
UVM respects the indigenous knowledge
interwoven in this place
and commits to uplifting the indigenous peoples and cultures
present on this land and within our community.
Last year at the conference, for those of you who are here,
you might remember FEMC began an effort
to understand where all of our partnering organizations work
and how that intersects with indigenous land.
Those of you who were here then may remember
looking at a map of indigenous territories in the northeast
and adding your organization to a list
showing where you work and whose land that traditionally is.
We had 10 organizations from across the region
representing four different indigenous territories
add their names to our list last year,
which is an okay start, but I know there are a lot more
than 10 organizations and agencies represented here.
So, we're gonna continue that work today
and you should look for,
there'll be a computer set up near the registration table
where you can explore a map
and write the name of your organization,
as well as the territory that's on,
so please do stop by there today.
All right, before I get into some updates
on regional forest health,
as well as FEMC's projects
and accomplishments this past year,
I want to acknowledge and thank
the amazing group of staff
that have made all of those accomplishments a reality.
Over the course of this past year,
FEMC staff have shown me again and again
how lucky I am to get to work
with such a bright, talented, creative,
and thoughtful group of people.
I really can't say enough how grateful I am
for everything that they do to make FEMC what it is
and get all of the massive amount of work
that we somehow accomplish over the course of the year done.
Oh, went too fast.
These are all of them.
I especially want to highlight a few new folks
who joined us since last December.
In January, we welcomed Soren Donisvitch
to our team as a data analyst,
and in just a year, he's had a huge impact
on what we're able to do as an organization.
We also have a new Eco AmeriCorps member, Jerome Lee,
who will be focusing a lot of his time
on helping with our forest health monitoring work
and has helped a lot with the conference today as well.
And Jake Vitale,
who was a great member of our field crew this past summer
and is also helping with our forest monitoring efforts
while Ben is on leave.
We also couldn't do any of this without our partners,
and especially our state coordinators
who keep us up to date
on state and regional forest health issues,
help us identify priority topics to work on,
and collaborate with us on projects.
We were lucky to welcome
several new state coordinators this year,
include these three,
Jess Cancelliere in New York,
Eli Ward in Connecticut,
and Larissa Robinov in New Hampshire.
All three of them have brought a lot of energy
and enthusiasm to our group of state coordinators,
and it's really exciting to have
a full roster of coordinators again this year.
And then, of course, behind all of this,
our funders continue to provide
an impressive commitment to the effort,
which in turn allows us to leverage funding
from more sources for additional projects,
and I sincerely thank all of them for their support.
Okay, I wanna start this morning
by sharing some overarching themes in forest health
that we've been hearing from our state coordinators
across the region this past year,
and set the stage for the conference that way.
One of the important roles that FEMC plays
is as a coordinator of folks
who are working in forests across the region,
facilitating the transfer and synthesis of information
from and between each of our partner states.
So, I'm happy to be able to share that kind of synthesis
with you this morning.
I am gonna say that this does start out a little dark,
'cause I start with pests,
so I'm sorry about that hanging there.
I did make them all send me good news, too,
so we'll have some of that.
Just stick with me.
Okay, so first of all, I wanna describe,
I did this little map key up in the corner.
It's not a scientific accounting of what's going on,
but just based on what state coordinators told me,
I got a sense of,
I tried to get a sense of how much of a concern
each pest was in that particular state.
Dark orange means it's the most concern or most prevalent,
lighter orange means that that pest or pathogen
is found in most or all towns or counties,
but is a somewhat less intense invasion.
This is where I was trying to to figure it out a little.
Yellow means that it's in some,
but not all places in the state,
at least as far as I could tell from what I gathered.
And then, green means not found.
Gray means that I just didn't get the information
for that state.
Oh, we were still starting here, okay.
Starting with beech leaf disease,
this year, beech leaf disease
was a leading forest health concern in Connecticut,
where not a single asymptomatic tree was found
in any of their forest health monitoring plots,
though a few were found outside of plots.
Foresters there are uncertain about how to manage forests
with high beech basal area,
given the likelihood for roots sprouting
that could suppress regeneration of other tree species.
Beech leaf disease is now in all counties in Rhode Island
and expanding rapidly in Massachusetts and New York,
where there's a lot of concern about impacts on Long Island
due to the presence of some rare community types,
like the maritime beech forest.
There were detections in 14 new towns in New Hampshire,
bringing the total to 20 towns there,
and it was just detected this year in Vermont
in two towns and one county total.
In Maine, four new detections this year
have brought the total up to 11 out of 16 Maine counties
affected by beech leaf disease.
Emerald ash borer has also continued
to spread across the region,
as everybody here knows.
EAB was detected in all towns in Connecticut.
It's widespread in New York.
It's in every county in almost every town in Rhode Island.
It was found in 15 new towns in Vermont
for a total of 57 towns.
That's 13 out of 14 counties.
12 new towns, including one new county in New Hampshire,
meaning that it's now present in every county
in New Hampshire,
and one new county in Maine.
This figure up here shows in Connecticut
where they're about nine years
following the initial detection.
EAB populations in the areas
that were hit earliest have crashed.
I'll talk a little bit more,
actually, don't know if I do talk about that more later.
But that's interesting
'cause that's one of the earliest places
that was invaded in our region,
so seeing what's going on there, I think,
can be helpful for other states further north.
Okay, elm zigzag sawfly hasn't been detected yet
in Connecticut or Rhode Island,
but it has been confirmed in a few parts
of Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont.
The Vermont Forest Health team notes that Siberian elm
appears to be preferred over American elm,
but both experience defoliation.
And in New York, the state is funding an entomologist
at SUNY ESF doing phenological research on zigzag sawfly
to inform management.
All right, hemlock woolly adelgid impacts
were mixed over the region this past year.
It was found in one new town in Vermont this year,
and hemlock mortality was reported
in locations where the insect exists.
But in Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island,
there was substantial mortality
of some recent HWA generations.
Though in Rhode Island,
the subsequent generation seems to have been doing
a little bit better.
Our Rhode Island state coordinator noted
that it seems that hemlock woolly adelgid
seems to be causing a prolonged decline in Rhode Island
rather than a quick die-off.
And in New York, there are still many
presumed uninfested areas
throughout the Southern Adirondacks,
where the state's highest distribution
of hemlock is located.
Also, hemlock woolly adelgid biocontrol agents
have been released across the region,
and many of the state coordinators
mentioned that in their updates to me.
The southern portion of the region,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut,
reported increases in the number
of southern pine beetles in traps this year.
For example, in Rhode Island,
there was just one beetle trapped in 2019
compared to more than 1000 beetles trapped in 2023.
However, to this point,
only Massachusetts has reported southern pine beetle
attacking and killing trees.
This was especially an issue in Nantucket
and Martha's Vineyard,
and our Massachusetts state coordinator
noted that most of their summer
was spent dealing with this problem.
There was also a significant
three-year outbreak on Long Island
that caused significant damage
to about 5,000 acres of pitch pine
with severe mortality in some areas.
And in New York, the focus is on managing
southern pine beetle using preventative thinning.
Okay, last one that I'm gonna talk about, spongy moth.
We saw an overall population decline in spongy moth
across the region this year,
largely due to wet conditions resulting
in enough of the fungus that controls spongy moth outbreaks.
One notable exception was in the Hudson Valley,
where there was a substantial outbreak this year.
Also, several states reported widespread oak mortality
from previous outbreaks.
For example, New Hampshire has lost
tens of thousands of oaks in the northern part of the state
and is expecting to see widespread oak mortality
in the conquered region in 2024.
And these are images from New Hampshire,
where they're using drones to survey that damage.
In addition to these concerns,
there were several other significant concerns
reported by our state coordinators,
and these are just some of the highlights.
Mile-a-minute vine was reported
in several northern states.
In New York, there's concern
about several escaped populations of Japanese tree lilac,
and work is being done looking at the species genetics
to assess its invasive potential.
Jumping worms are growing across the region,
or are a growing concern across the region.
They're probably also growing,
as are regeneration dynamics
due to browse competition with invasive plants
and oak crop failure in Connecticut.
And then, in mature oaks,
severe decline was mentioned as a concern by coordinators
in both New York and New Hampshire.
Okay, bad news is done. (laughs)
But amidst all of this,
FEMC's partners continue to do
really exciting and promising work,
and I wanna share some highlights of those things
with you guys today, too.
I definitely don't have time to cover everything
that everyone is doing,
but I'm gonna mention one or so initiatives for each state.
Vermont, New York, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire,
and maybe other states
who just didn't tell me in their updates
continued and expanded their biocontrol releases
for emerald ash borer and hemlock woolly adelgid,
and Vermont also released a management guide
for eastern hemlock conservation this year
to help landowners and managers with hemlock decline.
New York is heavily focused on state tree nursery expansion,
which is an incredibly important initiative
as nurseries struggle to keep up
with our ever-growing demand for native trees
for restoration work.
New Hampshire has been exploring the possibility
of using drones for forest health assessments
as they did this year to assess oak damage.
Additionally, in New Hampshire last year,
ash seeds were collected from 16 locations across the state
and planted at the nursery with good germination rates
and a plan to plant them back out in the forest
in the next couple of years.
Maine has successfully established populations
of a parasitic fly
as part of its winter moth biocontrol program
that was started in 2013.
Massachusetts reported no detections
of Asian longhorn beetle by any method this year.
Connecticut installed four slash walls in 2021 and 2022
that have been successfully excluding deer
and enhancing the diversity and growth
of regenerating trees.
Our Connecticut coordinator reports that after one year,
oak stump sprouts are three times taller
than inside the walls where deer are excluded,
compared to outside the walls.
And they also noted that,
although it is expensive to install slash walls,
that they have found it to be worth the cost
and less expensive than some other methods
of excluding deer.
And finally, Rhode Island is formulating
a southern pine beetle response plan in light of recent
southern pine beetle outbreaks in the region,
and that plan will include preventative management
and assembling the resources
to conduct suppression, if needed.
If you wanna learn any more about any of these things,
here are our state coordinators again.
And most of them are here today,
so these are what their faces look like.
Some of them you can see on this slide
and you should definitely go find them
if you wanna learn more about any of those initiatives.
All right, in the context of all of those changes,
forest health stressors, and successes,
FEMC has also been working to tackle
a lot of those challenges.
So, I'm gonna share a few highlights
of our work in those areas from this past year
with you this morning very briefly.
First, as I expect everyone in the room knows,
recreation in forests in the Northeast
has grown tremendously
since the start of the COVID pandemic.
This year, we completed an in-depth analysis
of the impacts of recreation on northeastern forests,
including both an inventory of methods available
to monitor those impacts
and the creation of several geospatial layers
that will soon be publicly available
to help land managers and researchers better understand
how forest health and recreation interact.
Up here, I have a picture
of some of the GIS products that are available,
and this is showing,
the green scale, the dark green to light green,
is the size of contiguous forest blocks
uninterrupted by recreation.
That includes trails buffered out
to different distances for wildlife.
And then, there's also,
we were able to combine that with Strava data
to get a sense of how frequently trails are being disturbed.
The yellow to red scale is the Strava data,
so you might, for example, see places
where there are small blocks of forest,
but they're not being disturbed
that frequently by recreation,
so maybe not as big of a concern
if you didn't combine those two pieces of information.
There are many more layers that are going to be available
and we have a poster about this project out today,
so if you wanna learn more, you should go check it out.
And then, the Methods Working Group is,
like I said, they've been analyzing the various methods
that are available for assessing
the impact of recreation on forests
and are going to have a decision tree
to help folks navigate which of those methods
might be appropriate in different circumstances.
Also, after several years in development,
we released the Northeastern Forest Inventory Network,
or NEFIN, which is a database and online web tool
that increases accessibility and usability
of forest inventory data by standardizing data
from several different CFIs so that they're comparable,
and also providing options
to download and visualize those data.
You can download both the original data
from these continuous forest inventories,
or the standardized data if you wanna be comparing
against multiple data sets that are in this.
And we are always,
we have eight inventories currently in the database.
We have a couple more in the hopper
and we're always looking for more,
so if you know of a long-term forest inventory program
that we should be including,
please let us know.
All right, and then we also completed a second year
of gathering forest health monitoring data
from 194 plots across the entire region,
so we can now say that we have
a region-wide multi-year data set.
And we're excited to have another year of that this summer
to make it three years region-wide.
Many of the plots extend back 30 years for Vermont,
but some of these plots
we just got to for the first time in 2022,
so we're excited to have gotten
to all nearly 200 of them twice now.
We also released the reports
from both our 2021 and 2022 monitoring seasons this year.
We had a little bit of a backlog, but now we're caught up,
and this year's report is going to be released
in the next couple of months.
If you're interested in any of these three topics,
I mentioned that the recreation project
has a poster about NEFIN,
and the Forest Health Monitoring season from this past year
also have posters out in the fireplace lounge.
So, if you're interested in hearing more
about any of these things,
please do go check those out.
In the past year, we've also seen an expansion
of our partnership efforts and projects.
For example, early this past year
in collaboration with New York DEC,
we applied for and were awarded
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding
for invasive species work.
As states throughout the Northeast collect data
on insect DNA that's ending up in their traps,
FEMC will be working to develop
an interactive geospatial database
that catalogs the resulting information
to support early detection of invasive species,
as well as detection of rare or endangered species
or other insects of interest.
This is a five-year project,
so we're really just at the beginning stages,
but we're really excited to be working
with this cutting-edge technology as it develops
and are looking forward to seeing where this project goes.
This year, we also awarded more than $100,000
in FEMC funding to five ecosystem monitoring fund projects
covering topics ranging from assessing the effectiveness
of low-cost dendrometers compared to standard dendrometers,
to monitoring the impacts of cold-air pooling
in northeastern forests.
Looking ahead to 2024,
we're gonna tackle a new region-wide project,
which, as Justin mentioned,
the Steering Committee and state coordinators
met yesterday afternoon to discuss what that might be.
We will be diving into
the regional insect DNA project in earnest,
and we'll be taking on a couple of state-focused projects,
as well as a lot more.