FOP 020: The Future of Reforestation with Jeff Debell

01/08/2023 47 min
FOP 020:  The Future of Reforestation with Jeff Debell

Listen "FOP 020: The Future of Reforestation with Jeff Debell"

Episode Synopsis

Jeff Debell is a forest geneticist working with the WA Department of Natural Resources, tasked with exploring strategies for growing trees in a changing climate. With increasingly hot and dry summers, reforestation has already become more challenging than usual. The health of future forests may be improved by or depend on innovative reforestation practices we implement today. One key practice is population migration, the practice of moving genetic populations within a given species in order to adapt to projected climate conditions (ex: planting Doug-fir from Oregon in Washington). In this episode, we discuss some critical research Jeff is conducting on this population migration and how small forest owners can support it.