NEFF’s Vanessa Komada Identifies Profound Theme at NESAF Conference
May. 04, 2026
How do we sustain forests in a system that undervalues them?
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NEFF Bioeconomy Initiative Director Jen Shakun has coauthored a 44-page guide from the US Forest Service titled, Climate Change Considerations for Forest Operations in Northern Forests. In full, it’s authored by Ryan Toot, Stephen Handler, P. Danielle Shannon, Amy Amman, Charlie Blinn, Patricia Butler-Leopold, Jennifer Shakun, and Maria K. Janowiak.
Here’s a quote from the guide’s introduction: “Weather is an important consideration in forest operations planning and implementation because it affects the timing and efficiency of operations and influences the type of impacts operations can have on natural resources, including soil, water, and vegetation…
“This guide presents climate change impacts, considerations that can inform planning, and a suite of example practices that may be useful for continuing forest operations and protecting natural resources in the context of climate change. It focuses on timber harvest, but the principles in this guide may also be useful for site preparation, timber stand improvement, wildland firefighting, hazardous fuels reductions, prescribed burns, and other forest operations that remove vegetative cover and require heavy equipment, roads, trails, or other forest infrastructure.”
The Forest Service recruited Jen for this project as a result of her past work on climate adaptation in forestry, as well as her work related to climate and forest operations under the Massachusetts DCR Climate Forestry program, for which she conducted a 2020 survey of timber harvesters.
Read the Forest Service guide.
Congratulations, Jen!
