New England Forestry Foundation Announces Ryan Owens as Next Executive Director

The New England Forestry Foundation, America’s sixth-largest land trust with more than 1.2 million acres conserved, has selected Ryan Owens as its next Executive Director. Owens will succeed the retiring Robert Perschel later this year.

“The New England Forestry Foundation embodies the balance and pragmatism that are my guiding principles, as the organization has spent 80 years protecting forests for the earth, for wildlife, and, ultimately, for people,” said Owens. “I’m honored to have the chance to lead one of the nation’s great conservation organizations and land trusts, as well as a pioneering New England institution for sustainable and climate-smart forest management on private forestlands.”

Owens comes to NEFF from the Monadnock Conservancy, an accredited land trust serving 39 towns in southwest New Hampshire, where he’s worked since 2006 and has served as executive director since 2008. Under his leadership, the Monadnock Conservancy has more than doubled its conserved acreage, which now totals more than 24,000 acres.

Owens was a co-founding director of the New Hampshire Land Trust Coalition, which advances land conservation through professional development, policy advocacy and education, and he serves on the Leadership Council of the Land Trust Alliance. The Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the Alliance, awarded NEFF accreditation earlier this year and will formally recognize NEFF at its upcoming LTA Rally 2024 in Providence, Sept. 25-28.

Holding a master’s degree from the Field Naturalist Program at the University of Vermont, Owens studied natural resource inventory and interpretation with an eye to applying science and communication to land conservation challenges. Prior to that, he worked in nonprofit development with The Wilderness Society in Boston. He holds an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, where he studied ecology and environmental studies. Owens lives in Walpole, N.H. with his wife and son.

In his 13 years at the helm of NEFF, Perschel led the organization into a new chapter by establishing a bold vision for NEFF’s work on the forest-climate connection. He oversaw a successful expansion of NEFF’s climate work into a range of expert initiatives and research projects, helped codify the climate-smart forest management standards known as Exemplary Forestry, and led the development of NEFF’s 30 Percent Solution, which applies Exemplary Forestry and three other forest-based climate solutions at a regional scale and has the potential to store additional carbon representing nearly one-third of the total energy-related CO2 emissions reductions needed across New England by 2050, or 646 million metric tons of CO2. Perschel also worked to conserve 9,150 acres of valuable wildlife habitat in Maine through NEFF’s Downeast Woods and Wildlife project, which added four new properties to NEFF’s network of Community Forests.

“The NEFF community has truly built something special together since I joined this remarkable organization 13 years ago. I’ve spent 45 years as an environmental professional, and in this final stretch it has been enormously satisfying to have helped NEFF step fully into a regional and now national leadership role on forest-based climate solutions,” said NEFF Executive Director Bob Perschel. “I’m confident that under Ryan’s leadership, NEFF will keep growing stronger.”

NEFF’s Climate-Smart Commodities project, funded by a $30 million award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is a signature element of this cutting-edge climate work and is designed to both help forest landowners implement climate-smart forest practices and build markets for climate-smart forest products. It pilots the kind of forest management needed to realize NEFF’s 30 Percent Solution and fulfill the potential of New England’s forests to mitigate climate change through this holistic approach that can keep more than 646 million metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the next 30 years.

NEFF and partners have also launched the Exemplary Forestry Investment Fund, aiming to eventually own 100,000 acres of Maine forest by raising approximately $90 million and then manage the forestland using NEFF’s climate-smart Exemplary Forestry approach to improve carbon storage, long-term forest health, wildlife habitat, and sustainable timber value and production in partnership with local communities.