Holiday Lake Forestry Camp – More Than Just Trees!

Charlottesville will play host to Virginia’s first national ecosystem services conference, and registration for the two-day event (March 12 + 13) is now open.  More than 200 people from across the United States are expected to attend and learn more about the financial market that is emerging in the ecosystems services arena.  The conference will be at the Omni Hotel in downtown Charlottesville.

Ecosystems services are the environmental benefits, such as clean air, clean water, carbon sequestration and others, that are provided by forested lands.

“Landowners, municipal and county officials, industry, non-governmental organizations, financial sector professionals, academia and environmentalists will benefit from the information discussed at the conference,” said Buck Kline, director of the forestland conservation division at the Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF).  “Ecosystem services has the potential to provide an additional source of revenue to landowners while providing tremendous public benefits to all citizens of the Commonwealth.”

The speakers are a mix of international and national experts in this rapidly developing sector and hail from such organizations as: the World Resources Institute, the Chicago Climate Exchange, the Environmental Defense Fund, Virginia Tech, the US Forest Service, Dominion Power, TerraCarbon, Winrock International, FORECON, AquaLaw, and several state agencies.

Single-day registration as well as full-conference registration is available.  To attend March 12th only, the cost is $125.  To attend March 13th only, the cost is $95.  Attendance for both days is $195.

To learn more, or to register, go to http://www.cpe.vt.edu/esmes/index.html.  For additional information, please call Buck Kline at 434.977.6555.

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The Virginia Department of Forestry protects and develops healthy, sustainable forest resources for Virginians. Headquartered in Charlottesville, the Agency has forestry staff members assigned to every county to provide service to citizens of the Commonwealth. VDOF is an equal opportunity provider.

With nearly 16 million acres of forest land and more than 144,000 Virginians employed in forestry, forest products and related industries, Virginia forests provide more than $27.5 Billion annually in benefits to the Commonwealth.