At the Ruffed Grouse Society & American Woodcock Society (RGS & AWS), we believe in the transformative power of actively managed forests—for wildlife, for hunters and for future generations. That’s why we’re proud to announce our role as a key partner in an amicus brief supporting the U.S. Forest Service’s management plans for the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF). This initiative underscores our unwavering commitment to science-based forest management and habitat conservation. The amicus brief, spearheaded by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, brings together a diverse coalition of like-minded organizations. Partners include the Appalachian Mountain Club, Northern...
The Importance of Partnerships in Conservation
By Todd Waldron | RGS & AWS Forest Conservation Director – Northeast I was a hunter long before I was a forester. A decade before basal area, stocking charts and silvicultural systems crossed my path, my grandfather and I sat under a big white pine that no longer stands, waiting for deer that never came, on a woodlot our family no longer owns. We contemplated deer sign and talked about witch-hobble, hardhack, popple and prickly ash. We talked about cutting next year’s firewood and corduroying the road and about the old garnet mine up on top of the hill. We seldom...
Getting to the Heart of Conservation
I’m a person whose life continues to be shaped by forests. When I was young, my family lived in the six-million-acre Adirondack Park, next door to the hardscrabble farm where my mother was born in the late 1940s. I grew up spending most of the summers with my dad’s parents on their 45-acre woodlot outside of the village of North Creek. It was here that my love for forests originated. My grandparents taught me how to identify birch and spruce. I learned about fisher and mink tracks – emblematic signs of the Adirondack forests surrounding us. Sitting under a big...
