• Start-up
  • Planning
  • Action
  • Evaluation

Huron Pines staff have completed the Adaptation Workbook and prepared a set of climate-informed restoration recommendations for a private landowner. Huron Pines staff completed the Adaptation Workbook at a Forest Adaptation Planning & Practices training in February 2014. These ideas are currently being incorporated into the comprehensive conservation plan for Cummings Farm.

Huron Pines is a non-profit conservation organization that serves landowners in Michigan’s northeastern Lower Peninsula. Through their Private Lands Stewardship program, they work directly with private landowners to make effective management decisions focusing on a number of goals – restoration, invasive species control, wildlife habitat enhancement, forest health improvement, and many more. In this project, Huron Pines staff are providing climate change adaptation recommendations to a private landowner as part of a complex restoration and agricultural project.

Project Area

The Cummings Farm is located north of Mio, in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.

Management Goals

The landowner has several goals for the property, including organic farming and forest restoration.  Specifically, Huron Pines is helping to develop a tree-planting project, prepare a silvopastoral forest management plan, restore a creek and wetland, and remove invasive species.

Climate Change Impacts

Staff from the Huron Pines used the Adaptation Workbook from Forest Adaptation Resources to evaluate the potential climate change impacts for the Cummings Farm project in particular. Potential climate change impacts that are of major interest to the management goals of this property include:
Altered hydrology from shifting precipitation patterns, more intense rainfall events, and warmer winters will impact the flow regime that can be expected in the restored riparian and wetland areas.
Invasive species may have increasing opportunities to establish in forests and pastureland, due to longer growing seasons, warmer temperatures, and shifting disturbance regimes. This is particularly a concern at the Cummings Farm due to the proximity to t

Adaptation Actions

Huron Pines staff used the Adaptation Workbook to identify several adaptation actions that could be added to the proposed plan for the Cummings Farm. Examples include:

Area/Topic
Approach
Tactics
Cummings Farm
1.3. Maintain or restore riparian areas.
1.5. Restore or maintain fire in fire-adapted ecosystems.
2.2. Prevent the introduction and establishment of invasive plant species and remove existing invasive species.
9.1. Favor or restore native species that are expected to be adapted to future conditions.
Focus tree-planting on a diverse mix of native species projected to be favored under climate change (red pine, white pine, red maple), as well as southern species that may do well under future conditions.
Create a small refuge area for wetland species when restoring stream and wetland (mix of shrubs, grasses, sedges, and trees)
Consider prescribed burns to help eradicate invasive species

Project Documents

Learn More

Keywords

Agriculture/ Agroforestry
Fire and fuels
Invasive species
Lowland/ bottomland hardwoods
Upland conifers

Last Updated