November 2011: The Science and Policy Divide: From Quandary to Innovation

A two-day session held at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA, established the groundwork for the formation of the Science Policy Exchange.

March 2011: Poultney Woodshed Project

In a joint project, the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (HBRF) worked with faculty and administrators from Green Mountain College to secure a growing portion of the college’s biomass energy requirements from privately owned forestlands located relatively close to Poultney. This successful project produced carbon savings resulting from lower transportation distances for woodchips, and at the same time supported the local economy by engaging traditional stewards of the forest: landowners, foresters, loggers, chippers, and truckers.

September 2009: Protecting Ecosystem Services at a Local Scale

A two-day session at the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in Colebrook, NH to create a blueprint for a pilot initiative that would put in place specific mechanisms for understanding, conserving, and marketing multiple and integrated sets of ecosystem services.

March 2008: Monetizing Carbon Sequestration in the Northern Forests

A two-day session at the Society of the Protection of New Hampshire Forests in Concord, NH, to address the following questions:

• What scientific metrics are needed (and attainable) to quantify forest carbon sequestration in the Northern Forest?
• How could those metrics be applied to access newly emerging markets for carbon?
• What existing and future monitoring mechanisms should underlie the process?
• What policy initiatives are required to ensure that forests have a place in new markets for carbon and other ecosystem services?

October 2006: Inaugural Hubbard Brook Roundtable on Forestry, Ecosystem Services, and Energy Solutions

Under the leadership of Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study co-founders Dr. Gene Likens and Dr. Herb Bormann, the Hubbard Brook Roundtable incorporates a broad range of stakeholders and utilizes an “ecosystem approach” to identify and discuss threats to the Northern Forest region. Over the course of two days of facilitated conversations, participants agree on recommendations for specific actions that can be taken to protect these ecosystems. The first Roundtable convened distinguished leaders from ecosystem science, government service, the timber industry, citizen groups and public-interest organizations to share cutting-edge scientific information about forested ecosystems in ways useful to policy makers and land managers. Many of the people were residents of the Northern Forest and had intimate knowledge of the values important to North Country residents: natural resources and wildlife, forest products, tourism and accessible landscapes, recreational opportunities, heritage communities, and more. Others brought to the meeting a national or international perspective. Some top environmental threats discussed included acid rain, mercury pollution, invasive species and diseases, salinization of waterways, fragmentation of the landscape, and climate change. It is the Hubbard Brook Roundtable’s ambitious goal and prediction that the Northern Forest “Ecoregion” will someday serve as a hopeful model for solving natural-resource and economic problems in other parts of the country and other regions of the world.