Funded Project: Oak Ecosystem Restoration on Private Lands across the Chicago Wilderness and the Driftless Area

Congratulations to C4E Affiliate Zhao Ma, Professor of FNR, for her successfully funded project, “Oak Ecosystem Restoration on Private Lands across the Chicago Wilderness and the Driftless Area.” Ma will work with Kristin Floress and Stephanie Snyder of the USDA Forest Service on this collaborative research effort, funded by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station. The goal of this project is to develop and test methods through which we can gain an understanding of restoration identities of private landowners and forest managers across the Chicago region and the unglaciated landscape in portions of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin known as the Driftless Area. This current work will inform coordinated efforts throughout the Chicago region and the Driftless Area  in ways to engage landowners in oak conservation. Further, there is currently a dearth of information available about landowners’ involvement in landscape scale restoration efforts and the extent to which landowners in these regions consider their land to be part of a larger forested landscape, thus this research will advance the science and address this knowledge gap  while establishing best practices for engagement.