Professional foresters from across the U.S. and Canada are gathering in Madison on Nov. 3-6 for the 2016 national Society of American Foresters convention. Wisconsin DNR forester Julie Peltier, who is serving as general chair of the convention, said the gathering of about 1,600 foresters will provide the opportunity to showcase Wisconsin’s 17.1 million acres of forests and the social, cultural, ecological and economic benefits they provide. Read more in this DNR news release. For more information, contact Kirsten Held, Kirsten.Held@Wisconsin.gov.
Division of Forestry News
Sustainable forestry in Wisconsin honored
Forest certification initiatives in Wisconsin received national honors from the Forest Stewardship Council with presentation of the 2016 FSC Leadership Award to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Read more in this DNR news release. For more information, contact DNR Forest Certification Coordinator Mark Heyde, Mark.Heyde@Wisconsin.gov, 608-267-0565.
BMPs found to protect water quality
The Wisconsin forestland sites monitored by the 2015 BMP teams. Coniferous trees represent sites that were in the Managed Forest Law (MFL) program and deciduous trees represent sites not in the MFL program. Note: Some dots are close together making the total number of sites difficult to determine on this map.
Newly-released results from 2015 monitoring for the application and effectiveness of Wisconsin’s Forestry Best Management Practices (BMPs) for Water Quality show excellent results. The effectiveness of BMPs that were applied correctly was extremely high (99.6%) at protecting water quality, but when BMPs were applied incorrectly or not applied, BMP effectiveness rates woefully dropped (6.3% and 9.4% respectively). Even with the low water quality protection of BMPs that were applied incorrectly and not applied, no major impacts were reported on any of the monitored sites. Read more details about the results from the monitoring of 36 non-industrial private forestland (NIPF) sites (26 of the landowners are enrolled in the MFL program) in the 2015 BMP Monitoring Report.
For more information, contact Forest Hydrologist Dave Kafura, david.kafura@wisconsin.gov, (715) 416-4140