Harvard Forest

The Harvard Forest is a department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) of Harvard University. From a center comprised of 4,000 acres of land, research facilities, and the Fisher Museum, the scientists, students, and collaborators at the Forest explore topics ranging from conservation and environmental change to land-use history and the ways in which physical, biological and human systems interact to change our earth. Since 1988, the Harvard Forest has been a Long-Term Ecological Research Site, funded by the National Science Foundation to conduct integrated, long-term studies of forest dynamics. Since 2011, the Harvard Forest has been the Northeast Core site for the National Ecological Observatory Network. Research faculty at the Forest offer courses through the Harvard College Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) and the First-Year Seminar Program. Close association is also maintained with Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS), the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), the School of Public Health (SPH), the Graduate School of Design, and the Graduate School of Education. We are sometimes confused with Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, a beautiful 281-acre preserve designed by Frederick Law Olmstead in the heart of Boston. Here at the Harvard Forest, our rural landscape-level research and educational programs are rooted in long-term forest dynamics that advance our understanding of biological, physical, and human systems.