Forester pushes active stewardship to heal forests

Amelia Napper, a forester with the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society, is using a new Aldo Leopold Foundation story to argue that healthy forests often need hands-on management. The effort highlights how young forest creation, canopy openings and other treatments can support wildlife habitat, especially as Vermont’s Green Mountain National Forest faces beech leaf disease and other stressors.

Why it matters: - Active forest stewardship can shape wildlife habitat, forest resilience and long-term public trust in land management. - The effort centers on species and conditions tied to young forests, including ruffed grouse, American woodcock and other wildlife. - Vermont forests are facing added pressure from beech leaf disease, which threatens a food source for deer, bears, ruffed grouse and other animals.

What happened: - The Aldo Leopold Foundation released a new Land Ethic in Action story featuring forester Amelia Napper. - Napper works for the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society and partners with the U.S. Forest Service on public lands. - The story shows Napper explaining why canopy openings, young forest creation and carefully planned treatments can improve habitat and forest health. - The article follows Napper in the Green Mountain National Forest, where she guided cautious landowners along a trail and discussed forest management. - Napper is 28 and grew up on Unalaska Island in Alaska’s Aleutian chain.

The details: - Napper’s Yale training taught her to evaluate northern hardwood stands through maps, soils and data. - Her upbringing on a remote island shaped her view that people face change more easily when they understand it together. - Unalaska Island has only a few Sitka spruce planted more than two centuries ago by Russian fur traders. - Napper said forests were something she had to leave home to see. - Karl Malcolm, vice president of conservation for RGS & AWS, said public understanding starts with forest history. - Malcolm said the forests encountered by European settlers were shaped by animals, people and disturbance, not static or uniform. - Malcolm said the early East Coast was not a “massive, homogeneous, pristine forest,” but a complex system influenced by elk, bison, beavers, passenger pigeons and Indigenous fire. - Malcolm said reduced or removed natural forces can leave forests missing the diversity and resilience they once had. - RGS & AWS is working with members, agencies and the public to build support for active forest management. - The organization says hands-off conservation alone cannot maintain the habitat mix needed by many forest species. - Forestry outreach in Napper’s view works best through direct conversations in the forest. - Napper said public land belongs to everyone and that people learn better when they can stand in the woods, ask questions and see how decisions are made. - Napper said forestry involves choices by foresters, botanists, soil scientists and wildlife biologists working toward long-term land health. - Across the region, habitat for ruffed grouse, American woodcock and other forest species has declined as fire suppression and reduced timber harvests have limited young forest growth. - Where prescribed fire is not practical, foresters often use mechanical treatments to mimic some of its ecological effects. - RGS & AWS partners with agencies and landowners on targeted forest management, including timber sales for the U.S. Forest Service. - Surplus funds from those sales are reinvested in prescribed fire, invasive plant removal and road-stream crossing improvements.

Between the lines: - The story frames active management as a conservation tool, not a threat to it. - The message is aimed at changing public perception of visible forest disturbance, which can look harmful before ecological benefits appear. - Napper’s island background and Malcolm’s forest-history argument give the campaign both a personal and a historical case for intervention.

What's next: - RGS & AWS will keep working with agencies, landowners and the public to expand support for active forest management. - The broader push appears aimed at building acceptance for treatments that create young forest habitat and restore ecological functions lost to fire suppression and reduced harvests. - The Land Ethic in Action story is intended to push readers to look past short-term disruption and focus on long-term forest health.

The bottom line: - The core argument is simple: in many forests, leaving land alone is not enough to keep wildlife habitat and ecosystems healthy.