SAF Hosting Series of Focus Groups

SAF is hosting a series of dialogues across the United States to get a sense of the “big picture” issues facing the American people and America’s forests—from wildlands to urban forests—in the coming decades. The first session will be held in Sacramento, California, on October 3 with subsequent sessions to be scheduled in Seattle, Washington; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Boise, Idaho; Chicago, Illinois; Greenville, South Carolina; and Concord, New Hampshire. 

Developed through a collaboration with the US Forest Service and the Portland, Oregon-based Metropolitan Group, these sessions will explore pressing needs, how those needs connect to forests and the science needed to manage them, and what we might do together to address them. 

Our nation’s forests are changing, as are people’s views and values about forests. For SAF and other interested stakeholders to continue to advance the science and practice of forestry, SAF must engage with and listen to the needs of many people­—both those whose interests may not yet be directly connected with forests as well as those who are already directly involved. Small focus groups of 8-10 people will be selected based on their unique backgrounds. SAF seeks a diversity of ideas and a clearer awareness of how it might work with others to build a stronger, broader community of interests about sustainable management of forests and the science needed to do so.  

SAF wants to hear what the assembled groups think are the challenges facing America’s private and public forests, and facing SAF as a leader for the forestry profession and forest science community. This input will also be assist the US Forest Service as it focuses on the future and explores how to better align agency activities and functions to best serve a large, diverse audience in the US and abroad.     

For more information, contact Richard Guldin, Senior Research Fellow, [email protected], or John Barnwell, Director of Government and External Affairs, [email protected].