Welcome to the 2025 Dakotas SAF Conference: Silviculture for a Changing World.

Western forests are facing unprecedented challenges — more frequent insect outbreaks, prolonged drought, extreme wildfires, and other threats that test their ability to thrive. These environmental stressors are only expected to intensify. How can we prepare our forests to withstand these changes and ensure their long-term resilience?

For over 100 years we’ve been managing our forests with a handful of techniques that have had consistent, positive results. But times have changed – and environmental conditions and disturbances have changed too. I find myself wondering: will our traditional methods continue to work? At this year’s conference, we’ll explore real-world strategies to help forests adapt, persist, and flourish in the face of these anticipated challenges. These approaches aren’t meant to replace current forestry methods, but rather to expand our toolkit—complementing what’s already working with techniques that account for emerging realities.

Silviculture is just a fancy word for manipulating vegetation in a forest to meet various management goals. At this conference, our goal is forest resiliency for both current and future conditions. Join us as we hear from experts leading the way in thinking about these issues and offering practical silvicultural techniques to prepare our forests for what lies ahead.

 We’ll examine historic forest structure and how changes over time have affected their ability to withstand disturbance. We’ll consider present and future threats, and reflect on what shifts we can make in our management strategies to help forests endure. We’ll also look at proven techniques for optimizing tree spacing and spatial arrangement in a world where there are less available resources and more frequent disturbance.

This conference is designed for everyone — from seasoned silviculturists to forest landowners, and citizens simply curious about forest management. We’ll break down the challenges forests face and highlight actionable solutions you can implement right away.