Paul Catanzaro Co-authors New Book on Ecological Forest Stewardship
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Paul Catanzaro—a professor in College of Natural Sciences’s Department of Environmental Conservation, the State Extension Forester, and the co-director of the Family Forest Research Center—has written a new book, Tending Your Forest: A Guide to Ecological Forest Stewardship in the Eastern and Central United States, in partnership with Tony D'Amato, a professor at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, and a UMass alumnus.
Focused on the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. (Maine to Minnesota, Missouri to Maryland), where most forests are owned by families and individuals, Tending Your Forest seeks to help forest owners make informed decisions about the stewardship of their forests—a critical part of sustaining the essential benefits forests provide. The book describes the principles of ecological forestry and strategies to apply these principles, so that forest owners can achieve their goals and sustain public benefits.
“Forests have never been more important,” asserts Catanzaro. “They provide essential public benefits, such as clean water, climate change mitigation, biodiversity, wood products, and recreational opportunities. But these forests are facing significant challenges, such as climate change, invasive plants, invasive insects, excessive deer herbivory, and forest conversion. To help move our forests through these challenges and sustain their many benefits, we need a new approach.”
Ecological forestry uses nature as a template to bring forests closer to healthy natural forests, thereby sustaining public benefits and achieving landowner objectives, such as diversifying wildlife habitat, mitigating climate change, increasing forest resilience, and producing local wood.
As the State Extension Forester, Catanzaro is charged with informing the decisions of forest owners and stewards in Massachusetts and beyond as a part of UMass’s land grant mission. Tending Your Forest builds on twenty years of collaboration between Catanzaro and D’Amato, reaching back to D’Amato’s days as a PhD student at UMass. The pair has authored more than a dozen outreach pamphlets on forest stewardship.
Reviews of this latest book have been very positive. Steve Hagenubuch, senior forest program manager at the National Audubon Society called the book “the definitive owner’s manual for forest stewardship.”
Catanzaro is hopeful that this book will help those who seek to care for these essential natural habitats: “Forest landowners, conservation organizations, and communities can use the principles of ecological forestry found in this book to steward their land.”
Learn more about Catanzaro and D’Amato’s new book, Tending Your Forest.