Home | Gateways | Academics | Admission | Directories | Site Index

Adirondack Forest Ecology and Management
EFB 513 (course # 11483) and
FOR 513 (course # 11484)
2-3 credit hours

Northern forest organisms and ecosystems are diverse and complex, particularly when humans are involved in forest resource utilization and management. New York's Adirondack Park is a macrocosm of that richness and complexity with its historic and changing patterns of land use, varied geology, topography, and climate, and high diversity of forest wildlife species, aquatic systems, and plant communities.

Research on Adirondack Park forests by SUNY-ESF faculty has been both extensive and intensive over 75 years, mostly on the Huntington Wildlife Forest-a 15,000 acre research forest in the central Adirondacks. Policies and procedures for managing Adirondack Park forests have been, to varying degrees, based on this research, especially in relation to wildlife, silviculture, and acid deposition. Today, research on the Huntington Forest has continued along these lines and has expanded its focus to biodiversity, forest health, and ecosystem integrity.

The purpose of this field-oriented course is to engage students in the richness and complexity of forests and their management in the central Adirondack region. Experience and knowledge gained at the Huntington Wildlife Forest over the last 60 years will be featured in the course. Students will emerge from the course with heightened understanding of:

• Critical issues in managing Adirondack forests;
• Classic and newly emergent ecological concepts and related underpinnings of those issues; and
• Various frameworks to organize complexes of information and knowledge as a basis for informed management decisions and policy making with regard to Adirondack Forests.

Issues to be formally explored will include the following.

1. Deer are keystone species that can either positively or negatively affect forest ecosystem functions and services.
2. Forest health in the Adirondacks is in jeopardy due to stresses from many predisposing and inciting factors.
3. Timber harvesting can either degrade or enhance forest ecosystems.
4. The Adirondack Park is the model landscape of a working forest that should demonstrate balance between utilization and preservation.
5. Humans chronically influence the Adirondacks through regional and global factors such as acidic deposition and global warming.
6. Biodiversity and related considerations of forest ecosystem health and integrity are the foundation of sustainable forest management and related land use decisions.

Most of the 2-credit hour course will occur in the forest, with brief, periodic day and evening lectures. Experiential learning will occur via in-forest, observational study of forest environments and associated plant and animal communities. Students will be required to keep a field journal and develop a series of treatises on the issues studied during the week-long course (take home exam due one week after the last field day). Students may enroll for one additional credit hour with associated independent work on a research topic related to the course, to be completed on the Syracuse campus during the following fall semester. The course is also open to Continuing Education participants.

Intended audience includes, but is not limited to, the following three groups:

1) college students: non-forestry majors (e.g., wildlife, natural resources management, policy, forest health, environmental studies);

2) college students: forestry majors (e.g., forest resources management, policy);

and 3) working professionals (e.g., wildlife biologists, foresters, natural resource managers, regulators, policy makers).

The course will meet the learning needs of people who want to develop, affirm, and extend state-of-the-art knowledge about forest ecosystem management from experience in the Adirondacks. The hierarchical structure of the course-it begins with single organisms, builds through communities, and ends with landscapes-allows students to engage at their highest levels of knowledge, experience and awareness. Existing and newly emergent concepts and ideas will be shared throughout the course, featuring recent research on the Huntington Forest and related forest ecosystems.

Syllabus

Dates: August 10 - 16, 2008

Location:
Adirondack Ecological Center, Newcomb NY

Cost:
$335.00 for room and board at the Huntington Wildlife Forest plus cost of credits. A $50.00 deposit is required by July 1st. Send deposit and make check out to:
Adirondack Ecological Center
6312 State Route 28N
Newcomb, New York 12852
* please specify "Adirondack Forest Ecology" on the check *

For non-ESF Students who want to take the course for credit, register via the ESF Outreach Office or contact Terry Sakowski at tsakowsk@esf.edu ; (315) 470-6891.

Participation in the course is limited to 12 students. Students taking this course for credit must get permission number (contact Dr. Christopher Nowak as canowak@esf.edu) prior to registration. CFE/ACF credit: 30 hours, category 1.

For further information, contact Dr. Christopher Nowak at canowak@esf.edu (315) 470-6575