Newswise — Dr. Ralph D. Nyland was the recipient of the 2017 Barrington Moore Memorial Award from the Society of American Foresters (SAF).
The Barrington Moore Memorial Award recognizes outstanding achievement in biological research leading to the advancement of forestry.
Nyland was honored for his outstanding contributions to the forestry profession during ceremonies at the 2017 SAF National Convention, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Nov. 1519.
As a Distinguished service Professor at ESF, Nyland's research productivity and quality have been high, the content has been innovative, and the work has had significant impact as it changed both forest practices and forest science regionally, nationally, and internationally. He is the author of one of the leading silviculture textbooks in use," Silviculture: Concepts and Applications," and is a leading scholar advancing the scientific basis for the uneven-age silvicultural system and assessing its sustainability.
Since his benchmark article, "Exploitation and Greed in Eastern Hardwood Forests," was published in the Journal of Forestry in 1992, Nyland has been an articulate critic of unsustainable forestry practices associated with high-grading, diameter-limit cuts and other exploitive harvesting practices. With his colleagues, he has made a substantial contribution to the profession's understanding of the short-term allure and long-term consequences of these practices. He developed models for policy-makers and forest managers to understand the trade-offs these practices exact. He also contributed high-quality science to describe rehabilitation strategies for stands that have undergone these practices in the past.
In addition, Nyland's research has added to the understanding of regeneration processes in northern hardwood forests. This work includes a series of thorough syntheses of the literature concerning interfering plants in northern hardwood forest systems, a contribution that enhances the quality of management by replacing hearsay with firm scientific information and eases use of research by placing all this information in a single piece of work for each category of interference.
The award recognizes Nyland¹s career-long commitment to serving his profession from workshops, field tours, and publications to service on commissions and committees that influence the practice of forestry and social attitudes toward the profession.
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