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The Appalachian Forest School offers intensive learning opportunities
on the natural history and the
world significance
of one of the most important of the earth's fourteen
terrestrial
biomes - the temperate broadleaf forest. Each event is 5-7
days in length and
is led by expert naturalists and field researchers
focusing their studies
in Eastern United States.
Forests
of the Far South--
Exploring the Botanical Hotspot of Florida's Panhandle
with
Bruce Means
Director.
Coastal Plains Institute
and Land Conservancy
Author, Priceless Florida, and Stalking the Plumed Serpent
March 10 -17th, 2010
This is the naturalist's trip of a
lifetime! We will be visiting a Florida not found
in the tourist books--a place that has retained the flavor of "Old Florida,"
from the days when it was a massive unbroken wilderness area composed of a complex mosaic of
natural communities. The Panhandle of Florida has some of the largest forests
left to be found east of the Mississippi. It is here that the temperate
deciduous forest dances on its southernmost periphery with native southern pine
forests and subtropical southern hardwoods. It is also here, not so long ago in
geologic time, that the temperate deciduous forest found refuge during the
coldest of the Ice Age advances. Along the great Apalachicola River, this
same forest, more at home in the Blue Ridge of the Appalachians than it is in
Florida, has
hung on until present day.
From the crystal-clear springs of Wakulla Springs and its champion-sized
hardwood trees, to the coastal lowlands and seepage bogs with their carnivorous
plant communities, to the nearby Red Hills of Alabama --this trip will lead
participants into some of Eastern America's most special natural areas, far
off the usual sightseeing routes. Many of our destinations are relatively
unknown, and are often visitor-restricted; and they simply cannot be accessed without a guide who holds the
key. For us. that guide is Florida's renowned interpretive naturalist
and foremost ecologist, Bruce Means. -- researcher, author, conservationist,
non-profit founder, professor, and herpetologist, just to name a few of his many
appellations. Without exaggeration, there is not a person alive today better qualified to lead this trip into the backwoods and backwaters of Northern Florida.
Coming from the staff of the Appalachian Forest School, we say, "We wouldn't miss this
trip for anything!"
Click here for full details.
Trees
of the Eastern Temperate Forest
A tree recognition, natural
history, & forest succession
course
Arc of Appalachia Preserve System in Southern Ohio
June 27 - July 2, 2010
Although the Eastern temperate forest
can claim well over 200 species of trees, learning just 40 to 45 of them will
allow you to travel anywhere into the forest heartland - from New York to
Tennessee - and identify with accuracy 90-95% of the standing trees you will
see. In fact, you could even travel to Europe and Eastern temperate Asia and be
able to recognize nearly all the trees by at least their family and genera. This
is exactly the goal of this course: to teach you the majority of the common,
widely distributed broadleaf and associated evergreen trees in the Eastern
temperate forest by both common name, and, if you are really motivated, by Latin.
We will be concentrating not only on the forms of the leaves, as a clue to ID,
but particularly on bark characteristics. We will practice being in real-life
situations where the forest trees are towering above your head and you must
employ these other skills to identify them than having their leaves in your
hands. You will also learn trees'
ecological relationships, their qualities of wood, their beauty and crown shape,
wood craft and folklore. We will be taking a habitat and age-successional approach
to tree identification, so that your knowledge will gain depth and application.
By the end of this program, with a bit of mental effort and repetitive practice,
you will be able to identify from 25-70 tree species, depending on what level of
mastery you choose to aspire. We will nurture and encourage the beginner (how
well we remember being there!), and push the experts to higher mastery. In
addition to tree ID you will also learn the read the
forest's cryptic story - gleaning from just a quick glance tremendous
information about the it's soils, age, and history, and health. We hope this
course is the beginning or a continuation of a lifelong avocation. The course will be held at the
2000-acre Highlands Nature Sanctuary in southern Ohio, a forest covering three
major physiographic regions and boasting outstanding species diversity. The
Highlands is the largest of the Arc of
Appalachia Preserve System's thirteen preserves, and its main headquarters.
Lodging and meals provided in one of the Highlands' beautiful group lodges. For more information
click here.
Photos by Larry Henry.
Forests of the Far North
The Temperate Forest's Dance with the Boreal
Exploring
the Border Lakes
Ely, Minnesota
July 10 - July
17, 2010
l northern bogs
and pitcher plants l
the call of loons at dawn
l
the howl of wolves at dusk l Ojibwe, People of the
Wild Rice
l
breeding warblers
l
northern trees and shrubs
l
canoeing deep clearwater lakes l
lichens l
summer orchids
l
North country art and literature l
northern forest ecology
l
tales of Arctic
exploration & dogsleds l
effects of global warming
Two
of Earth’s major terrestrial biomes, eastern temperate and boreal,
transition in northeastern Minnesota. Here, glacially carved,
crystalline lakes serve as backdrop to the majestic boreal forest
where it begins its circumpolar domination. This is the forest of
the Ojibwe, the voyageur, author Sigurd Olson, and modern day polar
explorers with all the legends they inspire. Beyond that, it is
home to the largest population of gray wolves in the Lower 48,
moose, loon, and black bear. It attracts and captures outdoor
adventurers and naturalists with its biodiversity, sheer vastness,
and unparalleled solitude. In the North Woods, we can hold wilderness in our
eyes, hear it with ears unaccustomed to stillness, touch it with our
souls.
We will be staying at a rustic & remote resort known as
Smitty's on
Snowbank,
located on the
shores of 4600-acre Snowbank Lake. Two thirds of this lake stretches
into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, an immense 1-million
acre sanctuary preserved within Superior National Forest. The
Boundary Waters offers over 1500 miles of canoe routes and more than 1000 lakes and
streams. Lying just five miles south of the Canadian border and Quetico Provincial Park, itself well over a million acres, Snowbank
is truly end-of-the-road wilderness. While the forest will be our
inspiration, experts from the University of Minnesota, MN Department
of Natural Resources, Vermilion Community College and local
naturalists will be our guides.
Click here for
program details.
Managing Forests for Native Biodiversity
Recommended for
Forest Landowners
Arc of Appalachia Preserve System
Southern Ohio
September
24-26, 2010
l
forest succession l
evaluating
forest health & history l
qualities of a functioning forest l
complexity of inter-relationships
l
global
view of the temperate forest
l
how
to inventory your own property and create a plan
l
aesthetics and diversity as factors in management
l
goal clarification
l
non-native influences
l
forest restoration
techniques
This course is for forest stewards who want to do the
“right thing” with their privately owned forest, whether that forest
is urban, rural, a quarter acre in size or a thousand. The truth is,
there is no one morally or scientifically right thing to do. What one does depends upon
what the landowner’s specific goals are, where in the world the forest lies, and what the
particular forest's past history has been. A very popular goal is to manage a forest
as sustainably as possible while maximizing timber production and
associated income. Another common goal is to manage a forest as recreational hunting ground for
one or more selected game species. There is a third path, often the one less
followed, that focuses on stewarding a forest to maximize its capacity to support native bio-diversity.
There
is nothing wrong with any of the above approaches. A landowner succeeds by
having clear objectives, by understanding the trade-offs and
benefits, and employing the most time-tested practices. This
course, of course, is designed for those land owners who are most
interested in cultivating bio-diversity, aesthetics and biological
complexity.
This course will focus on the most important principles of
restoring and managing a ecologically-functioning forest, and the ability to
recognize the results. Considerable time will be
spent in the field. We will be visiting dozens of landscapes with a variety of
past land uses, exemplifying a range of health and function. We will visit
to healthy old growth forests, young forests
following timber harvesting, and abandoned agricultural
lands. During
the course we will be concentrating on "reading" the history of the landscape
before us, and discussing possible restoration and
management techniques that could be applied to each site. The course
will also include orientation to the extensive data assistance
available on the web at no charge to the browser --
including aerials, topographical maps, and soil maps. Participants will be actively involved in discussion and dialogue throughout
this course.
Click here for more
information and registration.
Photos by Larry Henry.
The
Northern Appalachians
~
New England Forests & Alpine Ecology
Vermont and New Hampshire
With Michael Gaige
& Tom Wessels
Author of
The Granite Landscape, Reading the Forested Landscape,
Untamed Vermont
and The Myth of Progress
June
2011;
dates to be announced
For millions of years the two thousand mile long spine of the Appalachian
Mountains has served as the symbolic and geographic axis of America's Eastern
Temperate Forest The northernmost Appalachians, often referred to as the
Alleghenies, have a distinctive bio-geographical expression, as well as their
own unique and compelling beauty. Owing to the fact that these mountains top-out
over 6000 feet in elevation, combined with what has been dubbed “the worst
weather in the world,” the region contains eastern North America’s southernmost
alpine environment. Interestingly, the alpine flora of the Northeast is more
closely affiliated with Arctic vegetation than the alpine floras of the West.
The Northern Appalachians serve as
both a barrier and a transitional mixing zone for plants. In a span of just over 100 miles, one can
witness southern affinities such as mountain laurel and black
gum, and signature Arctic species such as Diapensia and
alpine azalea.
The past 400 years of Euro-American settlement and thousands of years of Native
American habitations add to landscape's compelling story, and are acknowledged
in this course's
curriculum. Explorations include the study of northern old-growth
forests, notable ecological communities, deeply storied cultural sites, and
ecology above the treeline. The itinerary begins in the Connecticut
River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire, exploring a number of outstanding
natural areas which are also rich in cultural history. From there we
travel to the Ossipee region of New Hampshire to visit several
unusual natural communities. We then head to the Presidential Range of New
Hampshire’s White Mountains for mountain and alpine explorations. As a necessary
component, this course includes several days filled with mountain hiking.
Details and registration coming soon.
Past Appalachian Forest School Courses which may be re-offered in the future:
Forest on the Western Fringe
Exploring
the forests of the Missouri Ozarks
in the Jacks Fork and Current River Watershed
Last held May, 2009
Let
us know
if you are interested in a reoffering.
Pine-Oak Forests Collared Lizards Wild Caves Canebrakes
Swainson's Warbler habitat
Grass Pink Orchids
 This is a trip to the Missouri Ozarks, the
tension zone between the lush eastern forests and the progressively drier
prairies of the Midwest.
Our destination is the wilderness region of the
spring-fed Current River and its tributary, Jacks Fork River, two of America's clearest
rivers. The wild waters of the Current watershed has earned it worldwide
recognition in the eyes of
canoeing and kayaking enthusiasts, so for most visitors, the river corridor is all they see. Yet
step into Missouri terra firma, beyond the tourist books,
and you will enter one of the most fascinating botanical, geological and
zoological areas in all of North America. The Ozarks boast over 160 endemic species
found no where else in the world. We will see prairie glades filled with
 a
dazzling array of forbes, natural canebrake communities that have nearly
disappeared elsewhere in
the East, and
remnants of Missouri's once-expansive pine-oak woodlands. We will be keeping our eyes open for the extremely rare
Swainson's
warbler,
found almost exclusively in canebrake communities that still hang on in the
Current watershed. Missouri also offers some of the nation's largest springs and
sinkholes, and more caves than any other state except Tennessee -- fully six
thousand of them, known as the "jewels of the Ozarks." And naturally, we will be
studying the temperate deciduous forest -- the Missouri expression of it.
Living Rivers
-- Arteries of the Eastern Forest
Signature Wildlife Species of North America's Temperate Forest
Arc of Appalachia Preserve System
Southern Ohio
Last held August 16-21, 2009 Let
us know
if you are interested in a reoffering.
This course focuses on what makes North
America's Eastern temperate forest
unique among temperate forests of
the world. Although our country's Eastern Forest shares many of its tree and
mammal genera with
Europe and Eastern Asia, our native forest has one major component that -- when
compared to the other temperate forest centers of Europe and Eastern Asia--
distinguishes it globally. Quite simply, in most realms the Eastern temperate forest claims the
highest aquatic life diversity in the temperate world.
For example, one healthy river in a southeastern U.S. forest
harbors more
 species of fresh-water fish than all the rivers of Europe combined.
But fish are just the beginning of the Eastern America's biodiversity
story. Eastern forest watersheds also claim
nearly 60% of the world's crayfish species, 30-40% of the
world's stonefly and
mayfly species, and more fresh-water turtle and fresh-water mussel species than
any other country in the world. Over 350 species of mussels once lived in the
eastern forest rivers, compared to less than ten species in western United
States and Europe. An estimated 40% of the world’s total salamander species are
found in the U.S. and the vast majority live east of the Great Plains.
Conservation challenges now make these waterways one of our most imperiled
forest ecosystem components. This course will help you appreciate the ecology of
the Eastern forest through the study of its lifeblood -- its rivers and
streams and the myriads of life forms that they support. An outstanding
assemblage of academic experts and researchers in the fields of botany, mussels,
crayfish, fish and salamanders will be leading this course--giving participants
a global, conceptual and cross-disciplinary foundation of knowledge. A
substantial amount of our time will be in the field, especially in the water,
becoming familiar with some of the signature species of the Eastern Forest and the
learning the importance of the waters that nourish them.
Connecting is the
first step in saving the forest.
e-mail
linkup.adm@highlandssanctuary.org
and ask to join our mailing
list to receive Nature Notes, educational program notices, and volunteer
opportunities
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