Are you a landowner who wants to protect your legacy by keeping your woods healthy? Do you want information on financial assistance and maximizing the benefits from your woodlands? Are you seeking to prevent the threats of insects, plants, and wildfire to the health and value of your woodlot?

The Woodland Steward Series is designed to equip landowners just like you with the tools and resources you need to manage your land, presented by experts from public and private agencies.

When Carl Alwin Schenck founded the Biltmore Forest School in 1898 to help manage the vast holdings of George Vanderbilt in Asheville, N.C., it is likely he had no idea of the impact this would make on landowners more than a century later.

The Biltmore Forest School was officially re-opened in 2003 with the creation of the Woodland Steward Series. 2010 marks the eighth year of the Woodland Steward Series in western North Carolina and the expansion of the workshops to other regions of the Southeast.

The Woodland Steward Series will provide the knowledge and resources necessary to enrich your experience as a woodland owner or manager. Each workshop includes numerous sessions led by natural resource and land management specialists, including both hands-on activities in the field and instruction in the classroom.

Discovering Your Land: Basic Land Management Skills introduces participants to setting goals and objectives, understanding local wildlife, and basic skills such as map and compass use, GIS and GPS information, tree identification, and soil sampling.

Native Landscaping & Water Management focuses on choosing and planting native plants, urban forestry techniques, basic information on invasive plants, and solving stormwater problems with plants.

Woodscaping Your Woodlands & Firewise Management gives an overview of managing forest land, insects and diseases, secondary forest products, and protecting your home and property by becoming firewise in your backyard.

Stewardship, Recreation, & Liability covers the basics of planning trails on your property, land ownership liability, recreational income opportunities, conservation easements, finalizing goals, and applying new knowledge and skills in the field.

The mountains series will be held in the summer. For more information and registration materials, visit www.cradleofforestry.org or contact Amy Garascia, Program Coordinator, at amysworkshopinfo@aol.com or 828-884-5713 ex. 26. Registration deadlines are quickly approaching.

The course is sponsored by: the Cradle of Forestry Interpretive Association, North Carolina Division of Forest Resources, NC Cooperative Extension Service, USDA Forest Service, and various others depending on the region.