Annual Meeting

The TAFCC annual meeting was held at the Gifford Pinchot National Forest Headquarters on July 31, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Members and guests discussed business related to the Taskforce. The most important decisions from the meeting are:

• Industry participation is critical to the Taskforce for gaining perspective from industry forestry within the region in order to guide the project and set priorities for information needs on options for forest management under various climate change scenarios.
• According to participants, the most important issues to gain knowledge from the Taskforce are:

1. Seed source / seed transfer decision-support tools,
2. Growth models which give projections as a basis for decision making,
3. Climate models which are accessible to forest managers,
4. Support for tree breeding decisions,
5. Understanding of the biology of the species/provenance responses to climate change,
6. Monitoring - how do we know whether changes are occuring?
7. Projected changes in species composition,
8. Links to other groups working on climate change-related issues to asses the effect of climate change on forest pests, diseases and fires.

• The name of Advisory Committee was changed to Executive Committee, whereas new members who would provide advice to the taskforce will form a new Advisory Committe.
• A lower-level contribution of $2500 was established to increase industry particiption. The acreage basis for this contribution will be decided by the Technical and Executive Committees.
• The Taskforce brochure will be ready in September and together with information at our website will inform the general public about the TAFCC and enlist new members and collaborators.

To find out more details read the minutes from the meeting.