Forest Service and University of Wyoming To Premiere Bark Beetle Video Series

The U.S. Forest Service and University of Wyoming Ruckelshaus Institute will host a premiere public screening of their collaborative video series, Our Future Forests: Beyond Bark Beetles, on Tuesday, April 29.

The event will be held on the UW campus at the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center, starting at 5:30 p.m. and admission is free. Our Future Forests: Beyond Bark Beetles is a series of 10 short videos exploring effects of and responses to the recent mountain pine beetle outbreak in our local forests.

The films, all of which take place in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests, highlight impacted user groups and areas, as well as share actions the U.S. Forest Service and others are taking to respond to the outbreak.

The videos take viewers to meet hunters, rock climbers, fire lookouts, city water managers, foresters, volunteers, and many other diverse characters who are dealing with effects of bark beetles. Locations include Laramie Peak, Vedauwoo, the Sierra Madre, Hahn’s Peak Lake and others. Acclaimed videographer Morgan Heim shot and produced the videos.

The showing will last approximately 1.5 hours, and the people involved in the making of the series will be on hand to talk about the project. The project is a partnership between the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and the University of Wyoming Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources.

This video series is one piece of a multi-pronged project to help people better understand the bark beetle epidemic that has included a public speaker series, publication of an annotated bibliography for forest managers, and creating a library of forest photos for various uses. An additional public showing of the videos is being planned for late May in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Ultimately all 10 videos will be housed on a soon-to-be-announced web site, and will be available for public viewing and sharing from that location.