April 29, 2025
Forests in the Great Lakes region face threats from climate change, invasive species, and disease. As forest managers search for strategies to mitigate negative impacts to forest health, one option that has emerged is adaptation plantings, in which managers plant specific species that may be better adapted to these stressors.
Researchers on this MW CASC-funded project assessed the state of the practice of adaptation plantings across the upper Midwest. Their approach used several information gathering techniques. Lucia Fitts, a co-PI on the project and lead author of the report, said, “We started trying to identify who was doing what across the region, trying to be as comprehensive and inclusive as we could. It started with conversations with a few people, which led us to conduct dozens of interviews, focus groups, and a very detailed survey. We even got to visit more than 20 of the projects we identified, which gave us an on-the-ground view of what we were hearing during the interviews and surveys.”
The team saw very different kinds of adaptation planting projects across the region, ranging in size, species, planting density, and browse protection. “One of the most interesting things I learned,” Fitts said, “was that despite the different organizational policies, constraints, capacities, levels of comfort, and budgets allocated for adaptation planting work and the limited experience with implementing these projects, adaptation planting was still a priority in the region, with increasing interest, funding, and collaboration potential.”
Many stakeholders the researchers spoke with emphasized the need for regional connections and partnerships for sharing knowledge of adaptation management. Given high costs and other barriers, stakeholders shared that they had a higher likelihood of conducting adaptation plantings if they saw others being successful at it. This research is one step toward building those connections. “By providing an overview of what tree planting for adaptation looks like in the region and some general trends of what has worked, potential opportunities, and what to account for at an institutional level, we hope to provide inspiration for managers to conduct these types of plantings,” Fitts said.
Read the article in the Journal of Forestry.