Category: Uncategorized

This blog was originally posted on the Massachusetts Introduced Pests Outreach Blog on March 7th 2017.

Though it’s cold outside now, the spring camping season is rapidly approaching! While many campers like to bring their own firewood to campsites, the invasive wood-boring insects Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) and emerald ash borer make frequent use of firewood to transport themselves to new infestation sites. Worcester has already lost 36,000 trees to date due to the ALB, so the economic and environmental risk these invasive pests pose to the rest of New England’s hardwood forests is immense.

In order to help spread awareness of these pests and the risk they pose, we offer a variety of free outreach materials, including ID cards, pamphlets, and laminated posters suitable for display outdoors. We (staff at Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources) also offer “Don’t Move Firewood” material that encourages campers to buy their own firewood at campsites. You can order your free materials using this Google Docs form.

Campers should be aware of the risks involved in moving firewood, even to nearby towns. It is a good idea to be aware of where at each campground you can purchase firewood.

If you want to update your campground’s website with information pertaining to invasive forest, here is some suggested wording:
Bringing firewood from home when you go camping could put your favorite campsite in danger. Tree-killing insects and diseases can hitchhike in firewood and use it to spread to new areas. Instead of bringing firewood with you when you go camping, buy firewood from a location close to where you camp.

For more information, see:

• Don’t Move Firewood’s Frequently Asked Questions page 
• Massachusetts Introduced Pests Outreach Project
• Asian longhorned beetle USDA APHIS information

It is the responsibility of all Massachusetts citizens and visitors to make sure we are preserving our natural resources, and being aware of these invasive insects and how to combat their spread is part of that.

You might be interested in:

• Massachusetts’ Regulations and Recommendations Map Summary

Guest blog by Meredith Whitney, Forest Pest Outreach Coordinator with University of Vermont Extension

Thousands of Vermonters come out of the woodwork every other year to witness the colors, smells, and excitement of the Vermont Flower Show. Upon arrival to the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, Vermont visitors first walk through the main garden display. As the Forest Pest Outreach Coordinator with the Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Program, I have the opportunity to attend events such as the Flower Show, where I can reach large numbers of highly engaged members of the public.

This year, we paid for a 10 x 10 booth in the exhibition hall and displayed large images of the emerald ash borer (EAB) and Asian longhorned beetle (ALB). The Flower Show was a terrific opportunity to use one of the two interactive “face-in-hole” banners that we recently designed. The banners are a fun way to spread the message about not moving firewood and work perfectly for social media posts. Having interactive components to our displays has doubled the number of people who stop by. The banners appeal to young children, their parents, and to many millennials- and each person that takes a photo creates a permanent and shareable reminder about these forest pests, right inside their smartphone!

The Flower Show was bustling this year. All three days were busy and our booth was always full of people asking questions about invasive insects. We recorded 719 people that came and looked at the display. I was surprised at how much people already knew. Nearly everyone who stopped by had heard of at least one of the two pests. The most common response I heard was, “I’ve seen those!” Since neither EAB or ALB have been detected in Vermont yet, I would walk people over to the insect samples, showing them how small the EAB really is, or how similar ALB is to the native six-spotted tiger beetle.

In many cases people felt hopeless at first, and they ask if there is anything they can do about the emerald ash borer. Much like me, they are stunned that it hasn’t shown up in Vermont yet. Last year, Vermont passed a law banning the importation of untreated firewood into the state. We tell them that the simplest and easiest way to slow the spread of invasive species is to buy firewood where you burn it. It is my hope that exhibits like ours at the Flower Show will inspire people to do their part and make a difference.

You may be interested in:

• All Vermont specific resources in our Resource Library
• Vermont’s Regulations and Recommendations Map Summary
• Vermont Guest Blog from 2015

We are very excited to welcome everyone to the newly renovated Don’t Move Firewood website. While we are still working out a couple finer details, please do take a look around and acquaint yourself with our new navigation and features!

Highlights of our new site include:

• The new site will work equally well on a laptop, desktop, tablet, or smartphone. Readable, clickable, loadable!
• Bright and engaging 2017 outreach designs are just getting started. See the first two, our basic poster and basic brochure, here!
• Our new Resource Library is cleaned up, easily searched, and easily sorted. We’re adding new materials every day.
• All states and provinces are now defined on our Firewood Map. We are working with several Canadian agencies to create each specific province summaries, just like we’ve done for the 50 US states. Stay tuned!

Join us for a FOCI webinar, Eleven Years of Firewood Behavior Change Research: what is working, and where should we go from here? on March 2nd at 3pm Eastern. This webinar will focus on the elements of firewood use related behavior changes that we have been able to quantify via The Nature Conservancy’s public polling data from 2005 to 2016 .

This webinar is being offered in coordination with National Invasive Species Awareness Week. Many thanks to Chuck Bargeron and the Bugwood Team for coordinating this shared educational opportunity!

This webinar is now completed!

• Watch this webinar on YouTube
• Watch this webinar on GoToWebinar (for proof of attendance)

Join us for a FOCI webinar, The People Have Spoken: Using Forest and Firewood National Polling Data to Promote Forest Health, on January 25 at 11am MDT (1pm Eastern). This webinar will discuss results from a national survey of citizen attitudes toward invasive species, firewood movement, and forest health. This webinar is jointly sponsored by the SREF Forest Health and Invasive Species Program and the Firewood Outreach Coordinating Initiative.

Invasive species are a major forest health threat in North America, costing federal, state, and local governments billions of dollars annually for monitoring, management, and mitigation of impacts.  Landowners are often negatively affected when forest ecosystems are changed and they lose valuable trees to invasive pests.  Human-mediated movement of invasive species is a common method in which pests travel long distances.  Using data from a national survey of U.S. citizens, this webinar will discuss people’s attitudes and knowledge towards invasive species and the relationship with firewood.  We will consider these data, and the common perceptions of individuals who routinely frequent the outdoors, in the broader context of forest health.

This webinar is now completed!

• Click here to view summary information on this webinar
• Click here to open a viewing window to see the complete recording

Join us for the first FOCI webinar of the fall, Forest and Firewood National Polling Results, on October 18th, 2016 at 1pm Eastern. Learn about how awareness of forest pests has changed over time, what slogans are best understood by the public, where the gaps might be in our outreach efforts, who is the most trusted messenger in the USA when it comes to forest issues, and so much more. 

Click here to view the webinar recording on the Don't Move Firewood YouTube channel

The Don’t Move Firewood and Hungry Pests campaigns are excited to co-launch the first ever Firewood Awareness Month during October 2016!

THIS BLOG IS OUT OF DATE: Please visit our Firewood Month Toolkit page to get the latest Firewood Month information!