MISSOULA, Montana — Alisa Futritski pointed to a group of female pinecones on a Douglas Fir tree in the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area & Wilderness. A group of volunteers with binoculars followed her lead to focus in on the female cone grouping on top of the tall evergreen tree.
“Yep, that’s a good grouping,” said Futritski. “Those are definitely closed female cones.”
Female cones produce seeds. Male cones don’t produce seeds, just pollen, which is carried by the wind to fertilize female cones. The goal for Futritski and the group of volunteers is to locate female closed cones and enter the data into an app on their phones. Cone harvesters will then use this data to collect the cones. Once collected, nursery technicians turn the seeds from the female cones into seedlings and saplings to replant them into forests.
These volunteers, known as citizen scientists, are collecting data for the Adventure Scientists’ Reforestation: Western U.S. project.
After wildfires, reforestation is crucial for restoring health to western lands. Adventure Scientists’ leadership plays an important role by training volunteers to collect data on evergreen cone crops, which is then shared with the company Mast Reforestation. Tree climbers harvest the seeds, and workers process the seeds — growing them into seedlings and saplings to replant in fire-ravaged areas. This helps ecosystems and supports rural economies.
Through this collaboration, not only are local landscapes restored, but rural communities benefit from increased employment opportunities and enhanced environmental health. This collective effort shows how citizen science and community partnerships can drive positive change in forest recovery.
Citizen science in action
By recruiting and training volunteers to survey cone crops in national forests across Montana and California, Adventure Scientists staff and volunteers help fill the gap in seed availability.
According to a 2022 report from the U.S. Forest Service, there is a significant seed shortage impacting reforestation efforts. Researchers found that only 6 percent of post-wildfire plantings were addressed by the USFS.
And USFS staff are not alone in this shortage. Rural communities that have lost large amounts of forests have the same problem.
In 2023, researchers with the National Interagency Fire Center found that wildfires in the United States in the last two years alone burned more than 9 million acres of land. This is larger in size than the entire state of New Hampshire.
“Volunteers are the backbone of our data collection efforts,” said Alison Ormsby, Associate Director of Design and Forest Specialist at Adventure Scientists. “Their work directly contributes to the reforestation projects that benefit both our natural landscapes and rural communities.”
In July, Futritski and her team trained a group of more than 25 volunteers (and more than 130 in the wider project) as part of Western U.S. project. Starting in a classroom at the Missoula Public Library, volunteers received a cone scouting guide, a picture-image booklet on 2024 field protocols, and detailed instruction on how to identify trees. For example, Ponderosa Pine trees have three needles per bundle and are up to 10 inches long with sharp points, while Douglas Fir trees have thin needles that stick out in all directions forming a bottle brush and are soft to the touch.
Instructors then taught volunteers how to tell the difference between male and female cones and how to use the cone scouting phone app designed by engineers at Adventure Scientists to take cone surveys with their phones in the forest.
Volunteers then hiked into several local national forests around Missoula to collect data within a mile of a trailhead. One group of about eight volunteers — ranging in age from mid 20s to early 70s — met at the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area & Wilderness at the trailhead. They set a timer to 20 minutes and hiked with backpacks, water bottles, and binoculars strapped around their necks.
One volunteer identified trees like Lodgepole Pine and Ponderosa Pine from the bark and needles as he searched the tops of trees for female closed cones through his binoculars. He adjusted the focus occasionally and cross-referenced what he was seeing to his field guide. Hikers and cyclists passed by along the trail as the group of volunteers scouted for cones.
“Remember to log absence data, too,” Futritski advised during training. “Knowing where there are no cone crops is just as important as knowing where they are.”
Tackling the seed shortage
The forests in the Western United States are not just scenic landscapes; they’re ecosystems that support biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and provide resources for rural communities. However, natural and man-made disasters like fires, diseases, and climate change impact these forests — making it difficult for them to regenerate on their own.
This seed shortage is worsened by the decline in U.S. Forest Service nursery facilities and budget cuts, which led to decreased seedling production.
“It takes time to grow seedlings from cone-bearing trees, but many of the nurseries needed to support this process have been underfunded or shut down,” said Ormsby.
Seedlings are small plants grown from a seed. Saplings are young trees that grow beyond the seedling stage but are not yet mature. It takes about six to 12 months for nursery technicians to grow seedlings and one to three years for saplings.
Over the last two years, leaders at Adventure Scientists partnered with Mast Reforestation’s leadership to collect cone data from evergreen trees in California and Montana.
“Once a crop is identified and access is confirmed, we will organize to revisit the site to sample cones, often times shooting cones from trees (with landowner permission) and cutting the cones in half to assess ripeness (helps determine timeline to collect), seed count (needed to ensure healthy embryo development), and whether there is any sign of pests or cone abortion (when cones fail to ripen and shrivel on the tree),” said Felicia Froton, Seed Program Manager with Mast Reforestation.
“When cones are ripe, we bring in our collectors, often times tree climbers, who climb the trees to collect cones,” added Froton. “Those cones are then transported to temporary storage until they are brought to a processing facility where the seed is cleaned, extracted, and either sold, banked, or sown into seedlings.”
In total, the process from seed collection to planting seedlings in the field usually spans one to two years.
In 2023 as part of this same project, volunteers surveyed 15 national forests (like Tahoe, Sequoia, and Lolo), 13 different species of trees, and 252 cone crops in California and western Montana.
The scarcity of native seeds is a significant bottleneck in reforestation efforts. In a 2021 study, researchers with The Nature Conservancy highlighted that 128 million acres of formerly forested land in the contiguous United States could be reforested with 60 billion trees to meet carbon sequestration goals. However, to replant even half of that land by 2040, annual U.S. tree seedling production would need to more than double, from 1.3 billion to 3 billion.
“As a volunteer with the local fire watch patrol in Southern California, wildfires are a big deal where I live,” said Michelle Lange, a volunteer from Topanga, California.
Southern California experiences thousands of wildfires annually, with an increasing trend in both frequency and intensity. On average, California researchers document thousands of wildfires each year, with Southern California counties like Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Diego being hotspots. In the last two years alone, California researchers reported more than 10,000 fires, burning more than a million acres.
The trend of rising wildfire occurrences is linked to prolonged droughts, higher temperatures and more development in fire-prone areas. Wildfire frequency across the western U.S., including Southern California continues posing significant threats to lives, property and air quality.
“With Adventure Scientists, I love collecting data that makes a difference. We’re actually helping replant forests lost to fires,” Lange said.
Data and rural community collaboration
Mast Reforestation is one of the leaders in the reforestation effort. Its trained staff is turning the data collected by Adventure Scientists’ volunteers into actionable results.
“This data is crucial,” said Froton. “It helps us deploy resources effectively and identify patterns in cone production, which will be increasingly important in our changing climate.”
And the benefits are not just for seed collection. These patterns help scientists build data baselines that will help track cone production trends over time.
The success of these reforestation efforts also hinges on collaboration with rural communities. Mast Reforestation relies on volunteers to scout for cone crops on public lands and access to seeds on private lands, where seed collection is often more feasible.
“We’ve worked with private landowners in Montana and California, among other states, for access to collect seeds that are critical for replanting forests,” Froton said.
This collaboration extends to employment opportunities. Mast Reforestation’s subsidiary, Silvaseed, operates seed processing facilities in rural areas, providing jobs and supporting local economies. Depending on the scale of the projects, a seed processing facility in a rural area may employ 20 to 50 workers in various roles, including seed collection, processing, packaging, and administrative tasks.
“We’ve increased our payment rates for local seed collectors and are exploring ways to further engage community stakeholders,” Froton said.
Sheep Creek Ranch project
During the last two years, Mast Reforestation’s leadership has employed people to replant 2,500 acres of forest in Cascade, Montana, at the Sheep Creek Ranch, which was almost entirely burned during 2021’s Harris Mountain Wildfire. This will help restore the local ecosystem — vital for maintaining biodiversity, supporting wildlife and ensuring the health of the surrounding environment.
It also safeguards the natural resources that local communities rely on for livelihoods and recreation. Reforestation enhances water quality and soil stability, preventing erosion and preserving water resources, which are crucial for agriculture and other rural activities. And the project contributes to local economic resilience by creating jobs and stimulating the local economy through conservation efforts.
The Sheep Creek Ranch reforestation project also plays a role in global climate efforts through the sale of carbon removal credits. These credits represent the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that will be absorbed by the newly planted trees as they grow. For example, the 279,269 CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) credits generated by this project are equivalent to removing the emissions produced by over 60,000 cars in a year.
The value of carbon credits can vary widely depending on several factors, including the market, the type of project generating the credits, and the demand for offsets at the time.
As of recent years, the price of carbon credits has ranged anywhere from $5 to $50 per tonne of CO2e, though prices could be higher for premium credits associated with high-quality or highly sought-after projects. The actual selling price varies based on factors such as the certification of the credits, the buyer’s willingness to pay, and the specific market conditions at the time of sale.
This innovative financing mechanism allows the community to fund large-scale reforestation, ensuring that the restored forest is protected under a conservation easement for more than 200 years. This long-term commitment not only benefits the local ecosystem but also makes a meaningful contribution to global carbon reduction goals.
“Carbon credits directly fund the reforestation work, in addition to the site prep, monitoring, and other efforts to ensure the forests we restore are resilient,” said Froton. “A portion of carbon revenue also goes directly to the landowner to compensate them for placing a conservation easement on their property.”
The future of reforestation
While the partnership between Mast Reforestation and Adventure Scientists is making strides in addressing the seed shortage, there is still much work to be done.
“Our partnership with Adventure Scientists has been beneficial for a few things,” Froton said. “The data has helped us with knowledge on where to deploy more resources for potential collections on approximate lands that we may have access to.”
Froton added that Mast Reforestation doesn’t have active partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service in regards to seed collection, but they are able to conduct collections in specific regions with Forest Product permits.
“We are encouraged by the momentum of partnerships like that of American Forests (a non-profit) with USFS and other public and private entities, that look to be scaling cone collection and other reforestation efforts across the West,” said Froton. “Ultimately, we hope to see greater potential for public-private partnerships that are directly between commercial entities and the federal government, that are more agile to address the complex supply chain needs for reforestation.”
The data collected by citizen scientists is crucial for researchers to build baselines for observing trends of cone crop production across multi-year timelines.
“This is a field with limited data but will be critical in years to come to hopefully identify patterns of seed production across the landscape,” she said.
“As the seed program manager for Mast, my goals to scale the seed supply chain across the West include sharing information whenever possible to encourage action on potential collection opportunities.”
In the meantime, the contributions of volunteers and rural communities remain essential.
“Our volunteers are not just collecting data; they’re part of a larger movement to restore our forests and protect our planet,” said Adventure Scientists’ Ormsby.
This sentiment is echoed by the many volunteers who have found a renewed sense of purpose through their work with Adventure Scientists.
As the need for reforestation continues to grow, so too does the importance of projects like these. By harnessing the power of citizen science and collaboration, Adventure Scientists and Mast Reforestation are helping to ensure that the forests of the western United States can recover and thrive for generations to come.
Suzanne Downing is an outdoor writer and photographer in Montana with an environmental science journalism background. Her work can be found in Outdoors Unlimited, Bugle Magazine, Missoulian, Byline Magazine, Communique, MTPR online, UM Native News, National Wildlife Federation campaigns and more.
