Watershed Forestry Partnership
Forests for Clean Water, Habitat, and Flood Mitigation
The Watershed Forestry Partnership facilitates research, communication, collaboration, and implementation of forest restoration and management practices that protect water resources in the Lake Champlain basin. We are a collaborative of practitioners, researchers, agency representatives, and others, who share best practices, new information, and coordinate efforts around funding opportunities and basin-wide restoration strategy. We are currently focused on riparian forest restoration as a key strategy to protect and improve water quality, provide terrestrial and aquatic wildlife habitat, and reduce the impacts of flooding.
The Watershed Forestry Partnership is funded by UVM Extension, Lake Champlain Sea Grant, American Forests, and UVM alumnus Bruce Lisman.
Looking for the Watershed Forestry program run by the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation? We collaborate with them, but they are a different entity and program. To learn more about their work and/or contact their Watershed Forester, click here.
News and highlights from the Partnership
The Watershed Forestry Partnership's 2025 Annual Meeting was held on February 20, 2025
Approximately 100 partners (99, to be exact!) attended the annual meeting held at the University of Vermont to learn about and discuss assisted migration, plant material sourcing, process-based restoration, targeting restoration along small streams, invasive species management, and monitoring and improving the outcome of our riparian restoration projects. The Native Tree Nursery Roundtable also convened during the meeting to talk about funding for restoration projects, the needs of local VT & NY nurseries, and how to advance the incipient "Tree Hub" for shared marketing, distribution, seed collection, and other collaboratory efforts.
2025 annual meeting recording -Silver Maple Room sessions
A recording of the afternoon Nursery Roundtable session will be available soon!
December 10, 2024 Nursery Roundtable Meeting
Local native tree & shrub nurseries met for the 3rd time this year to learn about species demand for federal restoration programs like the Conservation Reserve Easement Program (CREP) and the Wetland Reserve Enhancement (WRE) program. We also heard from the Intervale Conservation Nursery about what species have been in demand for 2025 so far and the services the Intervale can offer to other nurseries, both non-profit and for-profit. Click to read the meeting notes or watch the meeting recording. To keep informed about and receive an invitation to these meetings, please join the Watershed Forestry Nursery Production Listserv "Growers' Listserv" (see below).
New Grower's Listserv is now live!
In order to provide a better way for native tree producers in Vermont and New York to communicate with each other, share information, and coordinate efforts, the Watershed Forestry Partnership has created a Growers' Listserv. To subscribe, send an email with your first & last name and the email you wish to be on the list to shawn.white [at] uvm.edu
Note that this is a separate list from the general Watershed Forestry Partnership Listserv and meant specifically for nurseries. To subscribe to the general list, see below.
Nursery Roundtable Meeting held August 23, 2024
Several nurseries in the partnership met in August at the UVM Forestry Lab to discuss ways to increase local tree production and support local nurseries, including forming a "Tree Hub" to coordinate production, share equipment & seeds/starts. Click here for meeting notes.
Read the Summer 2024 Newsletter
Riparian Forest Practitioners Meeting held March 27, 2024
The Watershed Forestry Partnership annual meeting was held in person this year at the Davis Center of the University of Vermont campus in Burlington on March 27th. The draft agenda included updates and discussions on funding, site maintenance and preparation strategies, the status of nursery stock and production, native tree seed collection, landowner outreach strategies, project monitoring, and bird habitat assessment. Links to the meeting recordings are available on the Annual Meeting Page.
Get Involved
To join the Watershed Forestry Partnership listserv to receive more information about upcoming events and webinars, or to simply be part of the conversation, send an email command (“subscribe watershedforestry FirstName LastName”) to listserv [at] list.uvm.edu from the email address where you want to receive the emails. Alternatively, contact Shawn White, Watershed Forestry Coordinator, at shawn.white [at] uvm.edu. To read past posts on the listserv, go to the UVM public list archives and search for “Watershed Forestry”.