Forests for Clean Water, Habitat, and Flood Mitigation
The Watershed Forestry Partnership facilitates research, communication, collaboration, and implementation of forest restoration and management practices that protect water resources in the Lake Champlain basin. We are a collaborative of practitioners, researchers, agency representatives, and others, who share best practices, new information, and coordinate efforts around funding opportunities and basin-wide restoration strategy. We are currently focused on riparian forest restoration as a key strategy to protect and improve water quality, provide terrestrial and aquatic wildlife habitat, and reduce the impacts of flooding.
The Watershed Forestry Partnership is funded by Lake Champlain Sea Grant, UVM Extension, and Watersheds United Vermont.
Looking for the Watershed Forestry program run by the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation? We collaborate with them, but they are a different entity and program. To learn more about their work and/or contact their Watershed Forester, click here.
News and Highlights from the Partnership
Upcoming Native Tree Nursery Roundtable on July 9, 2026
The Native Tree Nursery Roundtable meets 3-4 times a year to share expertise and discuss opportunities for collaboration. Our next meeting will be on Friday, July 9th, 3-5 pm at The Farm Upstream, 150 Lee River Road, Jericho. For more information, please contact Shawn White, Watershed Forestry Partnership Coordinator: shawn.white@uvm.edu.
2026 Watershed Forestry Partnership Meeting
The 2026 annual Watershed Forestry Partnership meeting was held on February 19th. Over 100 riparian buffer practitioners, nursery growers, state and federal agency representatives, and other interested folks spent the wintry day at the University of Vermont’s Davis Center to chat with each other, get updates on partner activities, and hear presentations about seed and plant material sourcing, riparian buffer stewardship methods, leveraging riparian restoration projects to maximize pollinator habitat, and monitoring tree survivorship. The Native Tree Nursery Roundtable also convened during the meeting to discuss nursery updates, seed collection and sharing, and other collaborative efforts. The day ended with small, informal discussions of topics of interest and a popular hands-on dormant tree ID workshop complete with live baby trees. As with every WFP meeting, the highlights were reconnecting with friends and colleagues, forging new connections, and anticipating the coming of the spring planting season.
Read our Summer 2025 Newsletter
The Watershed Forestry Partnership’s 2025 Annual Meeting was held on February 20, 2025
Approximately 100 partners (99, to be exact!) attended the annual meeting held at the University of Vermont to learn about and discuss assisted migration, plant material sourcing, process-based restoration, targeting restoration along small streams, invasive species management, and monitoring and improving the outcome of our riparian restoration projects. The Native Tree Nursery Roundtable also convened during the meeting to talk about funding for restoration projects, the needs of local VT & NY nurseries, and how to advance the incipient “Tree Hub” for shared marketing, distribution, seed collection, and other collaboratory efforts.
2025 annual meeting recording -Silver Maple Room sessions
2025 annual meeting – Chittenden Bank Room Nursery Roundtable