Nancy Patch, VT FPR County Forester

Scott Sacco, Environs Strategies, LLC

Logan Johnson, Northeast Region Coordinator, Forest Stewards Guild

Retired ME Forester, work with the Local Wood Works organization

Scott McCue, volunteer with NEFF

Wil Merck, former NEFF board.

Mike Ferrucci, Chair Working Group on Forest Management and Climate Change, Yankee SAF

Charlie Levesque, President of Innovative Natural Resource Solutions, LLC

Is the proposal to ship the New England Wood to a manufacturer outside of New England?

Jennifer - If NEFF wants to document the carbon associated with the NEFA eastern hemlock Placetailor Boston building project, we need to connect ASAP.

FYI...Just today we're submitting final results of qualification testing conducted here that will create two new grades of CLT in PRG-320 using MSR SPF-S lumber from New England (two mills in Maine sent the lumber to SmartLam where it was produced and returned to Maine for testing).. It'll have among the highest values of all North American CLT making it competitive from an engineering perspective.

Also important to keep in mind that mass timber comes in many shapes, forms and products. For smaller demonstration buildings, NLT panels produced very locally might be a very good solution

A reminder that we have been working on getting people to accept forestry for the last 100 years. Not an easy thing to do - especially with no resources...

Yankee SAF has an active outreach program towards public audiences and key stakeholders. Most of the work is focused in Connecticut. An expansion is welcome. Already working with NEFF, and relying on NEFF for amazing support.

https://composites.umaine.edu/key-services/wood-composites/maine-mass-timber-commercialization-center/

On the same website there is an LCA report that was done on the proposed CLT addition to the UMaine Composites Center. If you click on the links of the report cover pages you can download these documents.

A consortium of representatives from the forestry, architecture and engineering programs of all of the land grant universities in New England might be a way of catalyzing interest and support for MassTimber in the region.

Charlie is correct; communicating the benefits of active forest management is very challenging

agree with Scot

Psychologists and some economists argue that most decisions are based on emotion

not just resources but partners. Foresters are not always the most trusted sector

I agree with Nancy. To be effective we need partners who might be better trusted than foresters.

What project in Boston?

Placetailor building - Hampden Building

There is a publication that specializes in getting hard science into digestible, non-expert language called The Conversation.

https://www.placetailor.com/

@Nancy and @Michael-- a few years back I did some focus group work on most trusted messengers. Foresters were pretty well trusted, though not as well as park rangers.

As Jen mentioned, we’ve been building out business case studies, looking at the financial feasibility of mass timber buildings: https://www.woodworks.org/mass-timber-business-case-studies/

Nancy and Mike - agreed that foresters may not be the right spokespeople but we never have enough resources to do this kind of outreach. We need $ millions (with the right spokespeople) to make a dent...

Architects and designers are the interface with the clients, so partnering with those folks and bringing this message there seems the most efficient

To Charlie's point, perhaps the resources should mostly go to communicating with decision-makers, not the general public. Resources would go further.

agreed

In addition we can work with landowners (small, private) and tap into an altruistic desire to affect climate change and not rely only on FSC or carbon offsets. FSC is still a barrier to small landowners

Agree with Charlie on landscape scale. With increasing volumes and higher growth to harvest, as well as aging stands, we are seeing rapid increases in volumes lost to mortality.

I just received paper with a scientific analysis of "Proforestation" by NCASI. Connor I sent it to you; can you circulate it to this group?

Not only does southern New England grow a lot more wood than it harvests, but a lot of tree mortality occurs in southern New England. Can we potentially use this as a talking point with the large segment of the general public that does not like the idea of cutting trees? Trees are dying anyway, so why not use local trees to build climate-friendly housing while supporting local jobs?

Agreed

This was the best hour I have spent on forestry issues in a long time. Well run. Great to hear from so many accomplished leaders in our field and related topics. Thank you NEFF

Pl recognize alec

Communications with key partners needs to have an action option. Where do the builders get the product?

Add the scientific to the communications.

I have had great success in empowering small landowners to think about active management as a means of climate change resilience. This is something they can do about climate change.

I like the idea of pre-planning the communications strategy while nailing down the science.

I appreciate WoodWorks communications resources: https://www.woodworks.org/publications-media/

Nancy, I'd like to learn more about your successes working with small landowners.

have to sign off. thanks for your work on this. It is a must

I see that the Boston building provides housing. Great emotional communication connection - when can get the residents together with the people that grew and produced the wood and built the building. Nice interplay between the two working groups we selected - that's the way it should work. Thanks everyone!