Planetary survival in the Anthropocene crucially depends on the stewardship of resilient forest ecosystems worldwide—at the scales of wilderness, planted forests, metropolitan tracts, and the urban forest canopy of cities and towns everywhere. The Fifth National Climate Assessment (US, 2023) repeats now familiar claims that healthy forests provide essential ecological, economic, and social benefits and services.

But our forests today face extreme risk. Disturbance agents are driving massive change—including unprecedented temperature increases, altered precipitation patterns, increasingly catastrophic weather events, uncontrollable mega-fires, and destructive land use practices. This symposium addresses risks and threats, initiatives and improved practices, and speculations on a more secure and more just future for metropolitan and urban forests and the species that inhabit them.

The symposium accompanies a concurrent gallery exhibition in the Druker Design Gallery, Gund Hall, entitled Forest Futures, curated by GSD Professor of Landscape Architecture Anita Berrizbeitia and the graduate students in her seminar, DES-3510 Forests: Histories and Future Narratives.

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Welcome and Opening Remarks by Sarah Whiting and Gary Hilderbrand

Panel 1: Scaling Threats
Moderated by Edward Eigen
Lisa Haber-Thomson & Edward Eigen, Epping Forest’s Highwayman, Dick Turpin
Jonathan Thompson, The Role of Forests in Massachusetts’ Decarbonization Roadmap
David Nowak, Urban Forest Change: The Need for Planning and Action

0:00 Welcome by Sarah Whiting
07:44 Introduction by Gary Hilderbrand
19:10 Panel 1 Introduction by Ed Eigen
22:11 Presentation by Ed Eigen and Lisa Haber-Thomson
38:26 Presentation by Jonathan Thompson
52:50 Presentation by David Nowak
01:07:45 Discussion and Q+A