Tim Stout

A Biodiverse Educational Tree Farm

Educational Opportunities

Jockey Hill Farm in Shrewsbury, Vermont has been passed down through six generations of family and is now owned by Tim Stout and his brother, Chris, and their respective families. Its management is a lesson in strategically reclaiming forestland and in the importance of involving the community in the educational opportunities which that provides.

Tim's work is being driven by both knowledge and also a deep sense of curiosity. TIm is quick to praise the multitude of peer to peer woodland educational opportunities available to landowners across Vermont and the benefit of this style of learning. He is also heavily engaged in these opportunities as a facilitator and uses his woodland as a classroom for community members.

....and that’s been really gratifying because I’m not an expert in this. I’m a devoted landowner who is extremely curious and I can learn from them [community members] and maybe they can learn from me. The sharing of ideas always elicits new creative land management strategies that can be applied to our farm

Forests as a Tool for Carbon Sequestration

Something which Tim is passionate about is the role that forests play in carbon sequestration and storage and using that to mitigate climate change. He’s done this through a number of strategies including planting over 250 climate resilient trees of ten different species, emphasizing structural, age and species diversity in his forest management and in general managing his property with climate change in mind. Tim also actively promotes forest carbon to other landowners by volunteering his time to different organizations whose missions are centered around climate change. Among these is the American Forest Foundation which has established the Family Forest Carbon Program focusing on small landowners, so that they can have a landowner perspective within this work.

....by establishing forest carbon as an essential land management objective, landowners can play a critical and measurable role in mitigating climate change.