A University of Kentucky lab researching Eastern U.S. forest resiliency and conservation efforts is slated for closure under a sweeping federal overhaul the U.S. Forest Service unveiled last week.

The Forest Health Research and Education Center housed on UK’s campus is the Lexington-based USFS research and development facility listed for closure, university officials confirmed. It remains unclear when the closure will occur and whether the center’s mission to combat forest health threats, like invasive pests and diseases, wildfires, climate change and land-use shifts, will continue.

A spokesperson said the university is “continuing to evaluate the impact to our program.”

Established in 2015 as a partnership between the forest service’s Southern Research Station, UK and the Kentucky Division of Forestry, FHC serves as a clearinghouse for scientific research and public awareness about pests and pathogens that can destroy tree species and degrade forest productivity.

It is one of 57 research facilities in 31 states the USFS says it will close under the consolidation plan agency officials tout will unify research priorities, accelerate the application of scientific discoveries and reduce administrative duplication. Critics say the plan is “short-sighted” and threatens to imperil the agency’s scientific research into how outside factors like wildfires, drought and pests affect the nation’s forest systems.

“This is a loss not only for Kentucky but a tremendous loss nationwide,” said Dave Leonard, a Lexington certified arborist and former president of the Kentucky Arborists’ Association. “It’s a terrible setback for years worth of service.”

Almost all the agency’s research will be moved to an operation service center in Fort Collins, Colo., and the USFS headquarters will relocate from Washington to Salt Lake City, the agency said.

USFS, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says it will also close all nine of its regional offices, including the Southern Region 8 headquarters in Atlanta where all 900,000 acres of Kentucky forest service land is overseen, including Daniel Boone National Forest, Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area and small portions of the Jefferson National Forest in far Southeastern Kentucky.

No changes for forest or district offices or their staffing will occur, said Mary O’Malley, Daniel Boone National Forest public affairs officer. Some research and development jobs will change, and employees may be asked to move to new locations, Forest Service Chief Thomas Schultz Jr. wrote in a March 31 email to employees.

Trump makes sweeping changes to public lands management

This is the second major shift in federal public lands management President Donald Trump has undertaken. The administration relocated the Bureau of Land Management headquarters from Washington to Grand Junction, Colo., in 2019, triggering mass resignations from more than 80% of the agency’s staff. President Joe Biden moved the bureau back to Washington in 2021.

The administration’s latest maneuvering puts important forest ecology scientific development at risk for the first time, detractors say.

USFS research work units, like UK’s Forest Health Research and Education Center, were intentionally spread out across the country and consist of small teams of local researchers in order to develop hyper-specialized expertise and trigger interest in forestry disciplines among students, said Ed Macie, a retired North Carolina USFS regional urban forester who helped establish many of this area’s research work sites.

“It’s just a complete assault and denial of science and science-based forest management, and I think it’s going to set us back many years,” Macie said. “It’s probably going to have a profound impact on forest health, as well as education to forest health and forest management.”

Certain universities and educational institutions have expertise — because of the people they employ or the places they are located — that makes them uniquely qualified to lead research into specialized forestry science fields, he added. Stripping that away leaves the status of carefully negotiated partnerships in question.

FHC was established by a $350,000 grant leveraged with $210,000 from UK and the state forestry division, plus $300,000 in private gifts, according to a 2015 letter to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council. The center planned to operate on a $1.6 million annual budget, almost entirely funded by UK and the forestry division, with an additional $300,000 from the federal government each year.

It’s unclear whether UK and the state had continued funding the center at those levels. A UK spokesperson said the Department of Forestry & Natural Resources was still evaluating the USFS announcement. KDF didn’t immediately answer questions posed by the Herald-Leader Tuesday.

Kentucky’s hardwood forests, like much of the Southeast and Eastern Seaboard, depend on a handful of foundational tree species threatened by fungi like sudden oak death and insects, including the emerald ash borer and hemlock woolly adelgid. Oaks comprise half of the hardwood sawtimber harvested in the Bluegrass State and contribute more than $12 billion to the economy, primarily due to the bourbon industry, which depends on new-fired oak barrels for finishing.

The FHC partnership sought to address challenges through biological and social research, combined with extension and outreach programs to educate stakeholders on forest health issues and connect them to networks dedicated to improving forest resilience, according to the city council letter.

Most of the researchers at FHC appeared to be Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment staff. Director C. Dana Nelson is listed as a former USFS employee as of March 10, according to the forest service’s research website.

The center’s administrative offices were located in the T.P. Cooper building, where the Forestry and Natural Resources department was located, but lab work was conducted in the Plant Science Building. Field work was conducted at UK’s Robinson Forest, the KDF seedling nursery in Morgan County and UK’s computer-controlled greenhouses.

A USDA spokesperson told the Herald-Leader the number of relocations beyond those already identified in Washington is “unknown at this time,” but that the transition will occur in phases.

“Employees will receive clear information about relocation timelines, available options, and resources to support their decisions,” they said.

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