Dr. Jesse Abrams Seminar - Landscape Restoration in Fire-Adapted Forests

Join us on September 14th, 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM at WSLR 116, in attending "Landscape Restoration in Fire-Adapted Forests: Policy and Practice Dimensions of a Complex Social-Ecological Dilemma," a seminar from Dr. Jesse Abrams of the Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. Dr. Abrams' research explores how people, policies, and institutions shape natural resource governance and restoration.

Decades of effort and billions of dollars have been invested to restore forests and reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire in the traditionally fire-adapted landscapes of the western US. In spite of these efforts, every year seems to bring another cycle of uncontrollable fire that results in evacuations, loss of lives and infrastructure, and the degradation of forests and watersheds. This talk will analyze forest landscape restoration in the western US through the lens of social-ecological complexity, moving from the scale of the community to the scale of federal forest and fire policy and from the forest stand to global climate dynamics. By walking through specific cases from across the West, we will examine the drivers of the dilemma, barriers to adaptation, and emerging governance approaches that hold promise for escaping from a social-ecological “trap.”

Any interested audience member is invited to attend. Anyone interested in meeting Dr. Abrams is encouraged to contact either of the hosts, Dr. Zhao Ma or Erica Kronenberger.